Among pickup beds stacked with watermelons, barbecue plate fundraisers and rows of graveside floral arrangements, another kind of street vendor has returned to San Antonio roadways this May after a long hiatus.
With the San Antonio Spurs back in the NBA playoffs for the first time in six seasons, the hometown team’s postseason run is fueling renewed demand for affordable Spurs merch – and bringing familiar street vendors back into view.
Spend an hour on the weekend driving around the city’s Southside, and you’ll find a handful of them under tents, peddling mostly unofficial Spurs gear – from T-shirts and hats to banners and flags.
And while it’s fairly easy to find Spurs vendors, it’s much more difficult to ask them questions about their side business. During a recent trip to the Southside and Westside on a Sunday afternoon, MySA stopped by six different street vendors selling Spurs shirts – and only one was willing to share their story.
Their reluctance to speak, however, wasn’t surprising. Most of these vendors operate in a very gray area when it comes to trademark and licensing laws, so any unnecessary attention was something we’re sure they wanted to avoid.
Still, on this particular Sunday afternoon, MySA wasn’t interested in writing an exposé on trademark infringement but rather capturing the colorful atmosphere of a revived Spurs playoff tradition.
Nevertheless, all the vendors we asked for an interview were tight-lipped, except for South San High School graduate Arturo Chavarria and his girlfriend Jade Sandoval. Chavarria, who sells both unlicensed and licensed gear, said his clientele visit him from all parts of San Antonio.
“I got white people coming all the way from Bandera Road,” Chavarria, 40, told MySA. “This one lady told me she came down here because they don’t have anything like this over there.”
Some of Chavarria’s unlicensed Spurs shirt designs include images of Stephon Castle on the cover of the latest issue of SLAM magazine, the Spurs logo embedded with the Tower of the Americas and the Alamo, and Fiesta-style block letters spelling out “Go Spurs Go” with Victor Wembanyama in the foreground.
Other vendors sell shirts featuring designs that were clearly created by AI – one of the reasons Chavarria believes there are even more vendors selling Spurs merch than ever before.
“It’s more accessible to do it today,” he said. “You can go online and make whatever you want and do whatever you want. Social media has made it a lot easier too. You can tell people where you’re gonna be [selling] and tell them all your prices.”
Chavarria, who rents out inflatable castles for birthday parties full-time, said he considers his side business selling Spurs merch an “extra hustle.”
“We’re just trying to put some change in our pocket,” he said. “We’re not trying to take anything from the million-dollar corporations like Nike. It’s fun being a vendor, meeting new people and seeing how excited they are getting into the Spurs spirit.”