Attendance I'm guessing it comes down to money. I might be wrong but I'm sure they were looking at cutting costs somehow and decided that giving away shirts, beanies, sweatshirts, etc. wasn't cost effective. Nevermind that you build a fanbase by getting them to go to games and sometimes the way to get them to go to games is to give them free stuff (like someone else said). You sacrifice some money short term to build the fan base long term where the hope would be they continue to go to games after they graduate and eventually, bring their spouse and kids.