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On Sunday night, while much of Lincoln found themselves surrounded by snacks, drinks, friends, and family to watch the 49ers and Chiefs duke it out for the title of 58th Super Bowl Champions, a northeast screen printing shop was digging in for a blitz.

Relentless Merch, located in the Havelock neighborhood on 3838 N 63rd St, had secured a contract to print merchandise for the Super Bowl, immediately after the game at 11 p.m. — but here’s the catch — only if the Kansas City Chief’s win. The deal was for 10,000 “Two-time Champion” shirt to be printed, boxed up, and on its way to Kansas City by 6 a.m. the next morning. If the Chief’s lost, Operations Manager Nate Skinner and his 24 employees would be going home.

Relentless Merch printing floor. Courtesy Photo

The crew spent Saturday preparing the shop, loading the print-lines with seemingly endless shirts. Sunday night, the crew came back for a suspenseful Super Bowl watch party. “Everyone was holding off on their caffeine too, so they weren’t just wired and had to go home and try and sleep,” Skinner told KLIN.

“We were watching the game, and by the end of the first half everyone was like, ‘Oh, all right, we’re going to be going home tonight.’ They didn’t think the Chiefs were going to win,” Skinner said. They were proved wrong by with a game-winning touchdown pass to Mecole Hardman. “As soon as that catch happened, the crew sprang into action. Everybody knew their stations, jumped up, and ran to where they needed to be. We were probably running within 3 minutes.” 

With the game going a little late, the Relentless crew an hour less than anticipated.

“It got down to the wire at the end,” Skinner admitted, “Felt like it was just as exciting as the game.”

The 1st annual Shirt-Printing Championship.

There were a couple of over night pick ups, and the crew was able to deliver on the 6 a.m. final delivery. Skinner said there was a sigh of relief, “and then I think the tiredness hit everybody.”

All the shirts were distributed to KC and other markets. Skinner speculated that you could probably find them online.

He said this was such a success, they want to continue these large-scale flash operations on some scale. “If anything, this shows that we’re always willing to take on a challenge… We’ve had a lot of people stopping into the shop asking about the Super Bowl shirts. So it’s definitely got some people talking about the shop.”

Relentless’ clientele typically consists of bands and community organizations, with a couple of national brands thrown in. But Skinner said it felt cool to do something “semi-local,” with the Chiefs being Nebraska’s de facto NFL Football team by proximity.

“We just have huge appreciation for our crew for stepping up and knocking it out of the park,” Skinner concluded. With an unharmonious analogy.