The cofounder of Store716 stood inside a Buffalo sports paradise. It was Sunday morning, and he was strolling past T-shirts printed with slogans that spoke to the magnitude of the afternoon ahead. Favorites include:
AVENGE THE 90s
BUFFALO VS. EVERYBODY
JOSH F*CKING ALLEN
WIN THE WHOLE DAMN THING
David Gram, the store’s co-founder, was born here, grew up here, went to college here and stayed here. He never considered leaving. Instead, while working at an advertising agency, he started a sports-gear side hustle with a colleague and fellow diehard. They sold hats and hoodies and key chains, but never at high volumes. “And then,” Gram says, “Josh Allen came along.”
The Bills quarterback changed their paradigm, allowing the marketers to open the brick-and-mortar store where Gram now stands. They like to describe their merch as “original Buffalo fan gear,” and this, from two advertisers, became an exercise in storytelling. They sold the collective experience of local sports fans, those devoted, rabid, tortured types who long ago decided the best way to prepare for games was to jump through tables after shotgunning beers. “We just have this feral desire for a championship,” Gram says. “It’s who we are.”
Seth Wenig/AP
On the wall behind him, near the cash register, there is a whiteboard. It announces “big news” related to a GoFundMe for Damar Hamlin, a donation of $41,716 to the Chasing M’s Foundation that Hamlin created long before that night. That donation marked the largest of nearly 250,000 contributions that funneled nearly $9 million to Hamlin’s efforts. All said something—about Bills Mafia, about Buffalo, about a community that supports and embraces and does right by its own.
