Skullman® Licensed Apparel Brand's Three Decades of Longevity is Icon of Pop Culture

Skullman.com announces the latest continuation of the Brand with Officially Licensed Skullman Brand Year End 2024 Editions released for winter 2024-2025 season.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, December 28, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Officially Licensed Skullman^® Brand Editions are released for year end winter 2024-2025 season. Included are official brand tie dye hoodies, hats, baseball caps, tees, headbands and more. Some select shirts and tie dye hoodies even have special commemorative embroideries and vinyl patches.

Vintage editions of the shirts still sell for hundreds of dollars online at sites like EBay. They have been sold since 1992 by the original artist from where all licensing rights originate.

The Official, Original 1992 Skullman^® Lithuania Tie Dye^® T-Shirts are available here at: www.Skullman.com Since 1992

The origin of the Brand:
You've seen the gear when it was first unveiled to the world on the Bronze Medal platform at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barceliona Spain. Greg has turned it into a legitimate, bona fide licensed brand which has endured for over three decades and has become part of pop culture.

It was a serendipidous series of events that came together to create one of the most memorable moments of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics.

The Lithuanian Olympic Men’s Basketball Team showed up on the medal platform, wearing the way-out Skullman^® tie-dyed basketball uniforms after clinching the bronze medal in the men's basketball competition at the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. They wowed the world, and it turned out to be something that was never before seen in the world of Olympic sports uniforms fashion.

The uniforms are an original licensed brand created and owned by the NYC artist who created them. The Slammin' Skeleton^® uniforms were created by NYC apparel brand designer Greg Speirs who licensed out his brand apparel in 1992 to the team just so they could have something fun to wear during the Olympics practice time before the actual Olympic Games. Wearing the "Skullman Tie Dyes" energized and inspired the team. After seeing the artist's T-Shirts worn by the team on the bronze medal platform the reaction from the international Olympics audience was overwhelming. The players wore the shirts wherever they went after that. Then the public wanted to know where they could buy one.

“The story became a major news event impacting popular culture, taking its place in Olympics history, had a major influence on the future of sports fashion and changed it forever. The Tie Dyed Slammin^® Skullman^® became a legendary household icon and major licensed brand from the artist.” said Mike Thompson of Slammin Sports^®.

“It’s really difficult to understand the magnitude and the significance and the impact and the power of what went down with those shirts.” said NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton. - Gannett News

“With those t-shirts, we were like the new kids on the block,” explained Rimas Kurtinaitis, a starting wing for the team who is now head coach of Lithuania’s BC Wolves.

The 1992 story:
The story began when Lithuania, one of the Baltic States' former Soviet Satellite countries, during the time of the Reagan administration, broke from the Soviet Union and gained it's newly found independence and freedom. Former Soviet player and then NBA star Sarunas Marciulionis, who was discovered by a coach at the Golden State Warriors, started rallying for donations and support for the new but financially strapped 1992 Lithuanian Olympic Men's Basketball team, with hopes of competing for the first time as a free nation apart from the Soviet Union in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Marciulionis received various monetary donations, including one from the Grateful Dead musical group. According to news reports, among the various donations the team received the Grateful Dead came into the story with a separate $5,000. donation of their own to Marciulionis, which was the part they played in this story. New York Licensor and apparel designer Greg Speirs also heard about the team's plight and came into this story by independently creating the Skullman^® Lithuania Tie Dye^® basketball uniforms just so the team could have something fun to wear during the practice time before the actual Olympic competitions. They are not a Grateful Dead license but instead are an independent brand license owned by the original creator, from where all licensing rights originate from the moment he created them in 1992. The significant fact is that they are a licensed property owned by the designer who created them. Qualified companies interested in licensing the property for available product categories can become a licensee by contacting: licensing@skullman.com Available Properties for License: Lithuanian Slam Dunking Skeleton^®, Lithuania Tie Dye^®, Skullman^®, The Original Tie Dyed Lithuania Slam Dunking Skeleton^®, Slammin Skeleton^®, Slammin'^®, Slammin' Sports^® and related Indicia & Trademarks.

Listen to the podcast that uncovered the complete, true facts about the t-shirts: https://wondery.com/shows/sports-explains-the-world/episode/13843-the-skullman-cometh/

Watch the YouTube Documentary: https://youtu.be/MsbJg8iJNYE?feature=shared

The public can get some of the new 2024 Editions here:
http://www.skullman.com/2024%20Gen%20Z%20Tie%20dye%20tshirts.htm

"The Lithuanian Slam-Dunking Skullman^® represents rising from nothing. Like a Phoenix from the ashes to slam-dunking a flaming basketball. It's not a dead skeleton, but the Skullman is alive and represents rebirth and a new life. When you are free you have the opportunity to succeed as an individual while still being part of a team. It was not only a victory in Olympic sports, but it was as if it were an overall triumph over communism itself. It's about freedom and free enterprise." recalled Speirs.

The story about the iconic apparel was highlighted in the 2012 sports and political documentary film "The Other Dream Team", Directed and produced by Marius Markevicius and Jon Weinbach, The film is about the Lithuanian Olympic basketball team's road to the 1992 Summer Olympic Games. The film highlights these elite athletes’ experiences behind the Iron Curtain, where they were subjected to the brutalities of Communism. Hiding from KGB agents and feared for their lives, Lithuania’s basketball stars always shared a common goal – to utilize their athletic gifts to help free their country. Aside from the hardships on the road to the '92 Olympics, the film celebrates Greg Speirs' iconic tie-dyed uniforms worn by the team, now a part of pop culture and an historic piece of Summer Olympics' basketball history.
See IMDB bio:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3998173/
Listen to "The Other Dream Team" interview:
http://www.gregspeirs.com/greg-speirs-audio-interview-by-the-other-dream-team-documentary-film/

"Greg played a much more significant role in the original 1992 story, including with respect to the funding of the Lithuanian team, in the years after the Olympics. The truth turns out that his part was a lot more significant than reported initially in 1992 and in subsequent news stories throughout the years. Some of the inaccurate misreports which left out the key facts about the source are still picked up and referred to today even by major news outlets. But finally the public is beginning to slowly learn the real story behind the source of the iconic shirts as the true facts are being brought to light" recalled Mike Thompson of Slammin' Sports.

“It is a much less romantic version of the story,” McNally admitted. “That’s the story that everybody constantly ignores. It was just Grateful Dead serendipity … We got a lot of credit that we didn’t deserve.” said Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally. Speirs feels similarly when he reflects on how previous versions were told. “It’s such a great story that maybe those reporting wanted the story to be the way they wished it would have been or the way they really wanted the story to be,” Speirs said. “Like a feel good fantasy but not in reality or with correct facts.” McNally admits that the narrative these days is too often personalized to credit Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, who he said didn’t even pay much attention to basketball. McNally said the band is credited with “genius marketing” on this project even though the first round of memorabilia contained no band logos, nor was it directly funded by the Grateful Dead. - USA Today "But the real story with the real facts is still a great story nonetheless." added the artist

About Greg Speirs:
He is the former art director who created the rock n’ roll music magazine “Grooves” back in the 1970’s, designed the legendary "Monaco Monk" icicle sleds for Prince Albert of Monaco and his Olympic Monaco Bobsled Team used in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics & 1995 World Cup and collaborated in the 1970's with famed Woodstock Music Festival founder and record producer Artie Kornfeld, in particular with RCA Records. Awards: Named to Society Of Illustrator's top 500 Illustrators in America Annuals 1975 and 1976. Named to Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

The Skullman Brand License funded the Lithuanian Olympic Basketball Team and additional Marciulionis charities. When the Olympics ended and demand for the shirts continued, Greg saw it as a great opportunity to help the team and chose to donate all of what would have been his profits to continue to fund the team. He licensed to the team use of his property (the shirts) to sell t-shirts for a limited time to raise money to sponsor the team and for Marciulionis' additional charities. That's why Greg is called the major sponsor of the 1992 Men's Lithuanian Olympic Basketball Team after the Olympics. He donated 100% of his profits to sponsor the team, which was the original $450,000 in the first wave of charity donated to the team (reported by Forbes Magazine) which continued sponsoring the team after the Olympics with more continuing profits going to Marciulionis and his charities which may have skyrocketed to millions according to news reports. All of the rest of Greg's profits were given to Lithuanian player Sarunas Marciulionis and the "Sarunas Lithuanian Children’s Fund" to help sick children in need, which was set up and controlled by the former Lithuania team player and NBA star who received 100% of all remaining funds with a portion used to fund Marciulionis' basketball school in Lithuania according to news reports." recalled Mike.
See CNBC news story:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/id/100165621

The artist's uniforms were listed as one of the Ten Olympics Games' most memorable team uniforms in modern history in The National News' "Lifestyle/Luxury" article, by Sarah Maisey July 26, 2024.

The uniforms were “enshrined” in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. on Dec.7th 1993, below a giant 12ft. x 8ft. 3-D incarnation of the legendary Slam Dunking Skeleton. Marciulionis's jersey was also added to the collection by the Basketball Hall of Fame's curator Mike Brooslin at the time.
See link: http://www.lithuaniatshirt.com/basketball%20hall%20of%20fame.htm

Official Licensor of the Original Lithuania Tie Dye^® Brand Apparel & Merchandise. 1992 © Copyright & Trademark^® property of Greg Speirs. Lithuania Tie Dye^® & the Lithuanian Slam Dunking Skeleton^® and all related trademarks, indicia and symbols are Official Trademark Brands and Licenses of Greg Speirs. Official Licensor/ Exclusive Source. All licensing rights originate from their owner and creator, Greg Speirs.

Mike Thompson
Slammin' Sports
licensing@skullman.com
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Officially Licensed 2024 Edition Original Lithuanian Slam Dunking Skullman® T-Shirts with a touch of tie dye in production for the 2024- 2025 Winter Season.