<p>Philadelphia Eagles fans didn't have to wait long to score an NFC Championship T-shirt.</p><p>Many area sporting goods stores had the shirts on display as soon as the fourth quarter ended Sunday night. By Monday morning, fans were looking for extra shipments of gear that had already sold out.</p><p>"As soon as the game was over last night, they were on a rack and started selling," said James Shultz, manager at The Sports Authority in Lansdale, where about a third of the 168 T-shirts had already been sold by noon Monday.</p><p>At the South Philadelphia Forman Mills, customers hardly even waited for new shipments of hats and other apparel to be unloaded Monday morning, manager George Pullin said.</p><p>"We had the boxes on the floor and as soon as they were open, people were grabbing things," Pullin said.</p><p>All the gear proclaimed the Eagles NFC champions, but the shirts could have easily read "Atlanta Falcons" instead. Manufacturers plan weeks ahead for sideline photos like the one of Eagles receiver Terrell Owens waving a gray NFC Championship T-shirt at the end of Sunday's game, said Mike May, spokesman for the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.</p><p>Distributors quickly move to get the same merchandise to stores. Employees at Max Graphics in Berlin Township, N.J., stayed up all night after Sunday's game printing 12,000 Eagles T-shirts for area department stores.</p><p>The Modell's Sporting Goods in The Gallery mall in Philadelphia sent employees to pick up NFC Championship merchandise at 5 a.m. Monday from another Philadelphia store, manager Marc Rand said.</p><p>Loyal fans may have bought their team jerseys earlier in the season, but bandwagon jumpers will help boost sales for Philadelphia and New England retailers in the next two weeks, May said.</p><p>"Sales are directly tied to emotion," he said. "Licensed products have a narrow window of opportunity where both teams' fans think their team will win."</p><p>So don't look for those Falcons shirts. "They were probably immediately destroyed," May said.</p><p>An estimated $13 billion worth of licensed team merchandise _ apparel, accessories such as earrings or shoelaces, balls and other equipment _ was sold in 2004, May said.</p><p>Rand said Modell's corporate office sent employees from its New York stores to Philadelphia Monday to help staff tables of NFC championship T-shirts.</p><p>Amid the black, green and white balloons decorating the Center City store, Matt and Alma Simmonds of Los Angeles shopped for Eagles jerseys, a blanket with the NFC Championship logo and other Eagles merchandise before catching a plane home.</p><p>Matt Simmonds already wore a silk-screen T-shirt, which had "Philadelphia Eagles _ 2005 NFC Champions" over pictures of football players, that he said he bought while exiting Lincoln Financial Field after Sunday's game.</p><p>"We're just trying to get as much merchandise as we can so we can represent our team in this long struggle," Simmonds, 32, said.</p>
