The recent BCS National Championship boosted demand for Gator fan-ware, but some stores said business isn't as good as it was after past title wins.
Taryn Emswiler, 23, the general merchandise manager at the Florida Bookstore on University Avenue, said sales should pick up within a few days and keep steady for several months as UF alumni and other fans trickle into Gainesville.
But so far, the rush has been smaller than former championships.
"Last time, we couldn't get around the store with all of the people inside," she said.
David Bushnell, 55, owner of Gator Fever I in Butler Plaza, said there have been less T-shirt sales this year compared with the 2006 football championship.
When UF played Ohio State, it hadn't won a football championship game in 10 years and was cast as the game's underdog.
"We wanted to win," Bushnell said. "We just didn't expect it."
A number of different circumstances affect the amount of shirts sold, he said.
The weak economy has left people with less money to spend, and the location of the championship game also factored into the decline.
Since the game was held in Miami, a lot of people are still out of town and haven't yet returned to buy Gator gear, Bushnell said.
"If I was a college student, and the game was in a town with a beach, would I come back?" he said.
Also, the 2006 and the 2008 championships had different circumstances surrounding them.
For example, after the 2006 championship, media hype speculating back-to-back championships for the basketball team crossed over into football, driving T-shirt sales up.
Still, the Florida Bookstore and Gator Fever I have sold lots of championship gear, and sales have been up since Thursday's game.
At Gator Fever I, a bestseller is the "Promise Kept" T-shirt, with Tim Tebow's complete, emotional promise of dedication after UF's loss to Mississippi, Bushnell said.
The store received two orders of nearly 1,500 of the shirts over the weekend. As of Monday, only a couple hundred were left.
"It was a great, great game," he said. "Hopefully, there will be another."
