TowelHub Blog

Almost every rally towel waved in an American stadium traces back to one Pittsburgh afternoon. On December 27, 1975, a local radio broadcaster asked listeners to bring yellow dish towels to an AFC divisional playoff game. Roughly 30,000 of them did. It cost his station nothing, yet fifty seasons later schools and event planners still copy its logic.

The terrible towel became the famous rally towel because it managed four things at once. It was cheap enough for any household, visible on television, simple to explain in one sentence, and tied to a single moment in the game. Pittsburgh won that afternoon and took Super Bowl X six weeks later, so every other league went hunting for a version.

Why the Terrible Towel Started as a Radio Stunt?

The promotion Myron Cope did not want to run

Myron Cope called color on WTAE's Steelers broadcasts when station management decided the 1975 postseason needed a hook. He resisted, and in his memoir Double You! he called himself a man who had never been in the gimmick business. His position softened once a colleague mentioned a possible raise.

What he landed on cost nothing to make. Nearly every kitchen in western Pennsylvania held a yellow or gold dish towel, so there was no merchandise to produce. Anyone short of one could dye an old towel overnight. The name arrived on air in one line, when Cope told listeners, "We'll call this the Terrible Towel."

What happened at Three Rivers Stadium

By game day, Cope thought the idea had died, having seen barely a towel in the parking lots. Nothing changed until the Steelers reached the tunnel and the stands turned gold above them. He put the count at 30,000. Pittsburgh beat Baltimore 28-10 and finished the run against Dallas in Super Bowl X. A printed gold edition went on sale that season, and the Steelers' terrible towel stopped being a one week promotion.

How a Local Gimmick Turned Into a National Habit?

An older towel in Kentucky

Pittsburgh deserves the credit, though the paper trail runs older than 1975. At Western Kentucky, basketball coach E. A. Diddle had waved a towel from the bench since the 1920s. His first was white, and it turned red only because students kept lifting towels from the physical education supply. That red towel became the school's official athletics logo in 1971, four years ahead of the terrible towel.

What Cope added was coordination. Diddle waved alone while a crowd watched. Cope handed thousands of people a cue to act on at the same second, which turned sports rally towels into a category rather than a mannerism. That distinction is why most histories, including who started the rally towel waving in sports, date the modern tradition to 1975.

How the Steelers towel reached every league

Television carried the picture into markets that had never seen a Steelers home game. Minnesota handed out the Homer Hankey in 1987 and won the World Series that October. 

Memphis built the Growl Towel, Seattle folded cloth into its 12th man ritual, and Texas A&M students have waved since 1985. By the time postseason giveaways ran from Detroit to Philadelphia, the Steelers rally towel was the benchmark everyone else measured against.

For a high school or booster club, the appeal is arithmetic rather than sentiment. Per head, a printed towel undercuts a shirt, folds into a back pocket, and stays on camera for three hours. That is why bulk rally towels remain the cheapest crowd wide branding a program can buy.

What the Terrible Towel Teaches Buyers About Product Choices?

Size, fabric and weight

Two of the original's decisions still hold up. It was small enough to swing without catching a neighbor, and it was cloth, not printed paper, so people kept it. Blank stock has since settled on 11 by 18 inches in ring spun cotton terry velour. The weave puts terry loops on one face for absorbency and a flat velour face that takes ink.

Weight is where quotes quietly diverge. A 320 GSM towel and a 444 GSM towel photograph identically but launder nothing alike, so ask for GSM before comparing prices. Hemmed ends hold a cleaner edge under a screen printed mark, which is why most custom sports towels for schools use them.

Fringed ends look more traditional, and a corner grommet turns the blank into a cart towel. Personalized rally towels with photographic artwork are the exception, since cotton loses that detail while polyester sublimation towel blanks hold it.

Color rules that decide the artwork

Color is not purely a branding decision, since venues have rules. Major League Baseball banned white rally towels in 2016 after hitters and fielders complained about losing the ball against thousands of pale cloths. Philadelphia's postseason towels have been red ever since. Read the venue policy before approving artwork for football rally towels, then pick a color that fights the ball rather than hiding behind it.

Counts, timing, and handout method

Cope never distributed a towel himself, which is the one part nobody can copy. His audience supplied the cloth, so the first wave carried no cost. Once a program owns the inventory, handout method matters more than artwork. A seat drop before gates open beats a turnstile table, because it still reaches fans arriving in the second quarter.

Order in whole dozens, since wholesale stock ships that way, then add ten percent for families, staff and press. Teams carrying bench stock should price that side first, and how many sideline towels a team needs works through the numbers season by season.

The Trademark Line That Stops Most Copycats

Who owns the towel today?

One warning matters more than any design tip. Both the name and the design are registered marks, so the terrible towel is not a generic object anyone can reproduce. Cope signed ownership to Allegheny Valley School in 1996, now Merakey Allegheny Valley School. By Merakey's own accounting, licensed sales have since returned more than 10 million dollars. The money pays for equipment, programs, and facilities for the 650 people it supports across nine Pennsylvania counties.

What to order instead?

A terrible towel wholesale search therefore leads nowhere useful, because licensed Steelers terrible towel stock has never been sold blank for outside decoration. The workable route is a plain towel in your colors carrying your own mark. Copying the protected design invites a cease and desist letter and takes money from a charity.

A Five Step Plan for Your Own Towel Moment

The five decisions

Strip the story back and five choices remain. None need a licensing agreement, a famous broadcaster or a budget beyond a print run and a case of bulk rally towels.

1. Name the moment. Cope picked one kickoff, so choose a third down or a fourth quarter timeout and announce it days beforehand.
2. Print an instruction rather than a logo lockup, because short type is the only thing legible on moving cloth.
3. Fight for contrast. Dark ink on light cloth, light ink on dark, nothing tonal, since subtle designs vanish from the upper deck.
4. Book the decoration early, since screen printers and embroidery shops need lead time that playoff runs never give.
5. Protect the reorder. Personalized rally towels for a title run are scrap if they arrive after elimination.

Where the format travels beyond the stadium

Schools chasing the Pittsburgh look search wholesale terrible towels and land, correctly, on plain gold and black blanks. The print is where their own identity belongs. The same economics carried custom rally towels into corporate use, where low unit cost matters more than team colors. 

Pep rallies, charity runs, and dealership open houses run them now, and departments buying spirit towels alongside wiping stock add towels for printing and embroidery to the same order.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who invented the terrible towel?

Myron Cope, a Steelers radio broadcaster, created it for the AFC divisional playoff against Baltimore on December 27, 1975. Instead of selling anything, he asked them to bring a gold or yellow dish towel from home.

What size is a standard rally towel?

Most blank stock measures 11 by 18 inches. Budget runs drop to 11 by 17, while programs wanting a bigger print area move up to 15 by 18. Anything larger gets awkward in a packed row.

Why is the Steelers towel gold and black?

Gold and black were the team colors already, and a gold dish towel was what most Pittsburgh households had. The Steelers rally towel carried that palette into licensed production and has kept it since.

Can a school print its own version of the Terrible Towel?

No, because the name and the design are licensed through Merakey Allegheny Valley School. Searches for wholesale terrible towels should end at plain gold and black blanks, and custom sports towels with your own mascot bring no legal exposure.

How many towels should a program order for one game?

Count the sections you want on camera, round up to whole dozens, then add ten percent. With football rally towels, start at the student section, because one packed block reads better than a thin scatter.

Bottom Line

The terrible towel worked because it was cheap, visible, easy to explain and attached to one clear instruction. None of that needed a licensing agreement or a large budget. Buyers who open with a terrible towel wholesale search usually finish where they should have started, on blank stock in their own colors. Sports rally towels earn their place for those same four reasons, whether the room is a 400 seat gym or a 60,000 seat bowl.

Pick the color, lock the artwork, order in whole dozens, and give the crowd one moment to wave. Compare sizes, weights and print ready fabrics for custom rally towels at Towel Hub, request a sample before artwork reaches a printer, and order while the season still has games left.