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• Date First Available ‏ : ‎ February 23, 2022
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The End of Merch

By Samuel Hine

It’s Merch Week at GQ. Check out our 41 Most Iconic Pieces From the Golden Age of Merch , and read Why Does Gen Z Love Nirvana Tees, Thrasher Hoodies, and Bass Pro Shops Hats?

Recently, I was reorganizing my dresser drawers when I discovered a thick layer of graphic T-shirts buried under my solid white standbys, undisturbed for many months. As I unfolded the creased garments, I found mementos I had bought as far back in 2017 at concerts, restaurants, and from random people on Instagram, all of which I wore for a while then all but forgot about. It was a stockpile from the years when merch occupied a special cultural position, when graphics were the language of style and fashion embraced souvenirs and novelty. I placed my minor collection into a plastic tub for long-term storage. I can’t imagine getting rid of any of it. But I also can’t really imagine wearing any of it anymore.

For about a decade starting in 2013, merch was everything in fashion. Definitions of “merch” are subjective, but a good place to start is any branded item of clothing or accessory that is distributed to promote something, like a New Yorker tote bag or a Beyoncé Renaissance tour tee. Whatever the subject matter, merch is a way to endorse things you admire, to establish yourself as a member of a fandom or subculture. Merch “signals people who are like-minded,” says the artist Andrew Kuo, an avid collector and longtime designer of merch. “It’s a way to come together,” he says.

There’s ordinary merch—and then there’s the merch that constitutes the one-time hottest trend in fashion. A Yankees hat is the former, a Yankees x MoMA ballcap the latter. The addition of an embroidered MoMA logo on the side of a Yankees hat turns an iconic accessory into a style statement and, more importantly, a vector of taste. The modern merch wave was driven by these collectible signifiers. For those with the merch bug, a hat that says your interests meet at the intersection of modern art and the Bronx Bombers hits much harder than any old team colors.

And as it turned out, there was no event too big or small, no spot too grand or unassuming to get its own merch. Your morning coffee spot stocks beanies, the MTA sells socks and baby onesies for every subway line, the New York Times sells Connections tees (you missed out on the NYT x Sacai gear in 2018), your job comes with a custom Stanley cup, your date notes that the restaurant lists a dad hat on the menu, and she’s wearing a Paris, Texas sweatshirt designed four decades after the Wim Wenders film’s release. The funny tweet you hearted earlier? It’s already splashed across a sweatshirt on Etsy.

We don’t need all of this stuff, but merch scratches a distinctly modern itch. “Not to get too philosophical about it, but we're all brands now,” says Alix Ross, who cofounded sprawling merch empire Online Ceramics with Elijah Funk in 2016. In the online age, Funk explains, merch offers a succinct and legible way for people to define themselves. “It’s such an easy way to communicate to strangers, Hey, we might have something to talk about. It is social collateral.” Merch, Funk says, is part of “a conversation that's happening actively everywhere all the time.”

The rise and fall of trends is a predictable cycle. Early adopters get a style popping, and by the time it has trickled down to the masses those on the bleeding edge of cool have long since moved on. Merch had a long, steady rise. It was cheap, plentiful , and often incredibly compelling. The low barrier to entry—all you needed to make your own line of tees was Photoshop and a screen-printing plug—meant there was always a new wave of exciting original graphic design, as well as a constant stream of new iterations of an increasingly gonzo aesthetic.

But the decline of merch was extraordinarily swift. By the time pandemic restrictions were all but a memory, we reentered the world with a specific kind of anxiety. In an increasingly chaotic cultural landscape, our merch was ourselves, how we fixed the boundaries of our identity. But at a certain point it felt like our niche combination of interests, or at least the heavily stylized graphic garments that advertised them, was simply one big trend that had gone way too far.

“When I was younger, if I saw another guy in a Rancid And Out Come the Wolves tee, I would be like, Holy shit, we can have a conversation about this ,” says Lawrence Schlossman of the menswear podcast Throwing Fits. The most fundamental dynamic behind the end of merch is this: We once got excited to see other people wearing our interests on our sleeves. And then it began to terrify us. “Today,” says Schlossman, “if you’re walking down the street and see somebody wearing Erewhon merch or something, you're not going to stop and talk to that person about whether or not they tried the Hailey Bieber smoothie. ”

It’s hard to avoid the feeling that all of the merch we’ve collected doesn’t add up to much more than a fuzzy bicoastal identity. When everything became merch, what did any of it mean? When you see other people wearing these specific but ubiquitous signifiers, continues Schlossman, “if anything, you’re thinking, Ugh, I thought I was so smug and special, and here's this other fucking idiot who also thinks they're so smug and special. ” Merch once made us feel unique. Then it made us realize that we’re not so unique after all.

The merch boom started with a “fart.”

That’s how the artist Wes Lang describes the amount of time it took for him and Virgil Abloh to come up with the designs for Kanye “Ye” West’s 2013 Yeezus tour merch . “It was like: This is it,” Lang recalls. “There was no time from the ask to do it until the night of the first show. It just happened.” Thus began the trend we know as merch.

Lang, who says he was “born in a graphic T-shirt,” was nonetheless an unlikely collaborator for an enormous rap tour. The Los Angeles painter’s previous merch credits included making Grateful Dead bootlegs for a small group of friends; he went official in 2012 when he used the spooky skull-and-roses iconography that permeates his eminently tattooable work to design a Grateful Dead box set (merch included). But Abloh, who at the time ran Ye’s Donda creative studio, was a visionary when it came to graphic tees. In 2010, he launched the DJ collective Been Trill alongside Matthew M. Williams and Heron Preston . Been Trill threw a great party, but is best remembered by the Goosebumps-core tees they passed out from behind the booth.

By the time the Yeezus tour kicked off in the fall of 2013, Abloh had launched the proto-fashion line Pyrex Vision and was well versed in remixing diverse design languages to sensational effect. Still, the tour merch, which juxtaposed a vampiric Yeezus logo with skeletons pulled from Lang’s canvases and the words “God Wants You,” was a rare kind of alchemy.

“It didn't just change high fashion,” says Lang of the Yeezus merch. “It changed everything.”

The Yeezus merch sparked a movement. “It was a mic drop from the first night of the first show,” Lang recalls. Fans were cleaning the merch stands, sure, but the real innovation came a few tour dates later, when the Yeezus gear hit PacSun. You no longer had to fight through the crowds at a concert to get your hands on it—you could just go to your local mall.

Lang was living in Hollywood at the time, and recalls a time when he would see people wearing Yeezus merch every time he left his house. The mass distribution didn’t render it uncool. In fact, it made it even more of a status symbol. “I got hit up by every person I ever met asking me for that shit,” Lang says. In fusing a luxury streetwear sensibility with a zeitgeisty musical project and Lang’s heady iconography, the Yeezus merch signaled that you were hip to the scene at the center of the rapidly converging worlds of art, music, and fashion. At the time, there was nothing cooler.

The merch arms race was now officially on. Tour merch was beginning to represent a much-needed revenue stream for artists in the digital age, but for those with ambitions in fashion, it could also function like their own clothing line : a platform for collaborations with designers, and an arm of their image-making campaigns.

Come spring of 2016, when Beyoncé dropped “Boycott Beyoncé” tees to hit back at the reaction to her “Formation” video, merch was a thriving subgenre of fashion itself. Many artists worked with rising designers, like when Justin Bieber collaborated with Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenz o (who also worked on Yeezus ) on a line of upscale Purpose tour gear that was sold at Barneys and VFiles that summer. When Rihanna released her punkish Anti merch at legendary boutique Colette in Paris at around the same time, merch was officially welcome on the luxury-retail racks.

Not to be outdone, the next month Ye—the alpha and omega of fashion merch —set up his own immersive retail experience , launching his Cali Thornhill DeWitt–designed The Life of Pablo merch into the stratosphere with a simultaneous 21-city pop-up shopping experience that Vogue compared to a “social experiment-cum-art project.”

It’s no coincidence that Ye, Abloh, and Lorenzo were three of the main instigators behind the streetwear revolution that turned the fashion industry upside down in the mid-2010s. At the time, there was a real celebration of subcultures in the air as hip-hop and skateboarding defined what was cool in the broader fashion world. The corollary was that everything was up for grabs. If merch is a way to find the like-minded, it’s also about excluding others. Which is now impossible, says Andrew Kuo. “If you can just go online and consume all of Black Flag's records in an hour, you have the agency to wear a Damaged T-shirt, or the logo, you know?”

In the free-for-all merch arena, menswear Tumblr guys wore Been Trill T-shirts and Abloh wore Grateful Dead bootlegs. Anyone could walk into Supreme and buy a Scarface or Nan Goldin tee—what used to look like poser behavior became a mark of good taste. To keep up with the shifting cultural understanding of cool, the layers of references in the merch system became extremely intricate, which made the whole scene even more subversive and interesting. Vetements put a yellow DHL deliveryman tee on the runway, a commentary on—what, exactly? Nobody could be sure, but it launched a spirited debate about the nature of luxury, not to mention countless memes.

By 2018, when Abloh—who redefined graphic T-shirts as luxury objects and preached appropriation as a design ethic—became the creative director of Louis Vuitton men’s, the abstract aesthetic of merch was a more important statement than the content itself.

In this new paradigm, merch was fashion. Few understood this better than Ross and Funk, who were the leading edge of a wave of young designers who built names for themselves with inventive merch during this period. The friends from Ohio didn’t intend to run a clothing business; they were Deadheads who wanted to be fine artists . Their first designs were bootlegs that they sold outside Dead & Company shows to pay their way along the band’s tours.

If there was a visual thread running through the golden age of merch, it stretched from Stanley “Mouse” Miller and Alton Kelley’s ’60s jam band posters to Wes Lang’s grinning skulls to Online Ceramics. Ross and Funk employed recognizable Dead iconography, but added their own totally imaginative spin. As Abloh once said, “Graphic tees are vibes.” Ross and Funk’s were the vibiest; their graphics felt like portals to a singular and strange dimension, a world narrated in gothic typeface and filled with dancing flowers, spooky scarecrows, and skeletons absolutely shredding the guitar. (Abloh was an Online Ceramics customer and fan.)

Ross and Funk quickly found themselves at the sharp end of a rapidly evolving industry. In 2017 they went official with Dead & Co, collaborating with bandleader John Mayer on a drop of tie-dye hoodies, and by 2018 they were partnering with culty film studio A24 on merch for the horror flick Hereditary , which spawned a cottage industry of official and unofficial movie merch. Jonah Hill and Emily Ratajkowski and Ty Dolla $ign bought Online Ceramics tie-dyes, and Zendaya wore an Online Ceramics x Fela Kuti hoodie in Euphoria . The pair worked with the edgy artist Jordan Wolfson and the estate of spiritual guru Ram Dass and everyone in between.

“Ever since we've discovered that every person wants merch, and people know that we’re the guys that do the merch, we’ve been in this super exploratory place of like, Oh, what can we make merch for now?” says Funk. “Which also opens up this complete can of worms, which is that anything can have merchandise. But it's made our job pretty entertaining.”

Despite Ross and Funk’s hyper-specific references, there is a remarkably universal appeal to the Online Ceramics aesthetic, which toes the line of sincerity and satire. One of their most popular tees depicts the earth inside a cartoon heart under the phrase “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.” By the time of its release in 2020, the Yeezus edge had been replaced by a more nuanced and ironic message, one that spoke directly to the catastrophic moments we were living through. During the Trump years, as global events rushed toward a pandemic and social media became another vector of the chaos, it had become all the more urgent to align ourselves with the things that meant the most to us. But at a time when sincerity felt grossly trite, the best merch fed into our irony-pilled personas. Were you wearing a frog-covered Online Ceramics “Toadal Chaos” tee as a joke? Was the joke on you? Did it matter?

As merch became more ubiquitous, and its meaning more multilayered, it became increasingly impossible to understand who someone was based on what they wore. Cynthia Lu of Cactus Plant Flea Market has designed some of the most memorable merch of the past decade for artists like Pharrell, Ye, Kid Cudi, Playboi Carti, André 3000, and the Rolling Stones, and brands like Comme des Garçons, Denim Tears, Stüssy, and Nike. Lu’s bubbly designs, which resemble the “Life Is Good” universe on acid, have become a fixture of the modern streetwear landscape.

Last year, Erewhon released a line of charming Cactus Plant merch. This came six months after McDonald’s —perhaps the greatest spiritual enemy to Erewhon’s organic empire—released a line of its own Cactus Plant gear. Lu’s trippy aesthetic world is remarkably consistent, and all of her designs share a distinct graphic language. From afar, it would be hard to tell if you were a raw water enthusiast or on your way to pick up a McFlurry.

With the onset of COVID, merch became a lifeline for venues and restaurants—and maybe for ourselves. I bought a ball cap from a beloved local tapas restaurant. In a stark political moment, there was plenty of cool political merch to choose from. I bought a Black Lives Matter fundraiser T-shirt from Online Ceramics, and a T-shirt bearing an image of Bernie Sanders and the phrase “Rage Against the Machine” from the LA artist Sonya Sombrieul. I was mostly sitting at home, but boy did it feel like I was doing something. The pursuit of merch gave life meaning. I remember spending hours browsing the websites of merch-y fashion labels Beepy Bella, Denim Tears, Awake, Sky High Farms, Noah, Bianca Chandon and many other smallish fashion labels that I figured could use a little extra business while physical retail was all but closed.

An early sign that the merch trend was heading toward a cliff was the widespread adoption of preorders. Merch was once tied up with ideas of exclusivity. It was ephemeral and limited edition. You wanted to be one of a small hard-core group of fans to have earned those stripes. And then merch operators small and large embraced preorders and drop-shipping e-commerce models, meaning the only thing limiting merch quantity was how many people were willing to buy (and then wait several weeks for) a Bernie “Rage” tee, a Dark Brandon coffee mug, an Astroworld hoodie, or a Cactus Jack x McDonald’s pillow in the shape of a chicken nugget. The scarcity model, once the key to the intertwined rise of merch and streetwear, was becoming a thing of the past.

And the more merch we bought, the more merch flooded the market, and all the energy that had built the trend began to vanish. “It happened so fast,” says Andrew Kuo, “that I think it really zapped the endorphins from the movement.” A lot of the merch I amassed reflected something genuine about my life: I love going to the Odeon and bought a cap embroidered with the Tribeca boîte’s logo at the bar. My somewhat extensive Online Ceramics collection spoke to my love for the Grateful Dead and admiration for Ross and Funk’s work.

But the truth is merch was coming to resemble a physical manifestation of the algorithm. For every original and visually compelling merch design that perfectly aligns with my interests, there is a boatload of sweatshirts bearing a one-liner delivered by Gwyneth Paltrow in a Park City, Utah, courtroom , or coffee mugs emblazoned with Donald Trump’s mugshot, the cynical merch version of fast fashion. “Merch used to actually mean something,” says Lawrence Schlossman. “Now, it’s more of a broad-stroke signifier that represents some type of nonspecific message about what you care about. A billboard that says you live in New York or spent two weeks walking around Silver Lake, or whatever.”

Fashion isn’t always great at being a mirror of our times. But the luxury establishment knows a thing or two about how to create desire through exclusivity, and in the past couple of years the industry executed a hard pivot toward understatement and elegance . The graphic tees that had dominated fashion runways for years vanished, replaced by cashmere sweaters in sophisticated tones. People began saying things like “texture is the new logo.” The most lasting visual legacy of Succession is the quiet luxury sensibility of the show’s Loro Piana–clad plutocrats, not the Waystar Royco branded vests that were for sale in HBO’s online shop.

Of course, the death of merch might be news to the hundreds of people who camped out next to a six-lane highway in the rain to get their hands on Taylor Swift merch before an Eras Tour show last spring in Tampa . Some were there for literally days to secure an unexceptional (but purportedly rare) blue Eras Tour crewneck. Similar scenes played out in cities across the world. Swift’s US tour alone is estimated to have brought in $200 million in official merch sales, which nets out to just shy of $4 million per night, and doesn't even count the cash going to the bootleggers in the parking lot. As a category of consumer goods, merch is undoubtedly bigger than ever.

Still, I have yet to see a single Eras Tour merch design in the wilds of downtown NYC—not even as part of an ironic outfit collage in Dimes Square. Neither the biggest tour in human history nor Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour launched an enduring fashion moment offstage. There is no “Boycott Beyoncé” T-shirt of 2024. And even if there was, it might not be clear which side you were actually on.

Around when I started writing this essay, I received a delivery at the office. It was a gift from the fashion brand Loewe. Inside, I found the T-shirt of the moment if there ever was one: a luxury replica of the “I Told Ya” tee worn in Challengers by Josh O’Connor and Zendaya. Loewe’s buzzy creative director, Jonathan Anderson , did the film’s costumes, and based the T-shirt off one that JFK Jr. wore in the ’80s.

As Andrew Kuo told me, at some point the merch craze “is going to get fired back up.” Kuo, who makes bootleg artist merch under the brand name Shrits , is a merch optimist. “All it takes,” he says, “is one or two tees. All we need is something to inspire us again.”

If the merch decade was launched by Yeezus , couldn’t it be revived by Challengers ? I put the tee at the top of my dresser drawer. Whatever effect it might have on the wider merch world, it had a profound effect on me. For the first time in recent memory, I couldn’t wait to wear a T-shirt that tied together a bunch of threads I found meaningful: menswear history, Anderson’s work, and the sweaty tennis ménage à trois movie that makes me want to wear plaid shorts all summer. The feeling didn’t last long. The first time I threw mine on, I was barely out of my front door when I saw another guy wearing one just like it.

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Grammy-nominated singer halsey candidly shares details of her health struggle, breaking news.

Jennifer Lopez Cancels Summer Tour To Spend Time With “Her Children, Family & Close Friends”

By Denise Petski

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Jennifer Lopez has canceled her entire 2024 summer tour.

“I am completely heartsick and devastated about letting you down,” Lopez said in a statement on her official tour page. “Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary. I promise I will make it up to you and we will all be together again. I love you all so much. Until next time…”

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Representatives for Live Nation , which was promoting the “This Is Me… Live” tour, said, “Jennifer is taking time off to be with her children, family, and close friends.”

Lopez had quietly canceled seven dates in March for the struggling tour, her first in five years, which has been plagued by low ticket sales. In April, it was announced that the tour had been rebranded from the “This Is Me…Now” tour to  “This Is Me…Live/The Greatest Hits,” which the hope that familiar material would goose ticket sales.

It has been 10 years since Lopez’s most recent studio LP, 2014’s  A.K.A. , and 22 years since 2002’s  This Is Me … Then  gave her two of her biggest hit singles in “Jenny from the Block” and the chart-topper “All I Have.” Before that, she hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “If You Had MY Love,” “I’m Real” and “Ain’t It Funny.”

RELATED: ‘Atlas’ Review: Brad Peyton’s AI Futurism Film Falls Short Despite Jennifer Lopez’s Star Power

Lopez had recently been out promoting her new movie,  Atlas , with Simu Liu, which premiered on Netflix last week.

The Black Keys also canceled the upcoming North American leg of their “International Players Tour” this week. Concert dates suddenly were deleted from the band’s social media pages and official website without explanation, but fans had complained on social media of high ticket prices, which ranged from $100-$300.

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Walton helped Pacers coach earn NBA title, win over future wife with concert tickets on first date

Rick Carlisle credits Bill Walton for adding many things to his life

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle poured out his heart Monday night when he started reflecting on the impact of Bill Walton.

He recalled how Walton’s arrival helped turn the 1985-86 Boston Celtics into an NBA title team for the ages. Carlisle explained how playing with Walton extended his own career and how Walton’s generosity even helped Carlisle impress his future wife on their first date.

Yes, Bill Walton, who died Monday at age 71, was a character — one Carlisle thinks will always stand alone.

“To me, he was a living, breathing event in history just walking around,” Carlisle said before the Pacers and Celtics met in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. “He played drums for the Grateful Dead at the Pyramids in Egypt. He was a guy who did everything and there’s been a lot of talk today about how he speaks in hyperbole and stuff, but he just defiantly competed for every moment in life to be the greatest it could possibly be.”

While some considered the Hall of Famer’s uniquely free-spirited persona the product of a bygone, war-protesting era, Carlisle knew the Walton others didn't.

The first time they met, Carlisle said he was shocked to see Walton eating a large roast beef sandwich instead of the expected vegetarian dish. At practices, Carlisle said, Walton raised the competition level so high the starters and backups argued about who won the most scrimmages.

But, when it was time for business, Walton went all in — on the court and off of it.

Perhaps no event showed more about Walton’s character than the moment Carlisle asked for tickets to a 1987 Grateful Dead concert in suburban Washington.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ve got a date with a girl I think is really cool, I’d love to go to the Dead show at Capital Centre, but I don’t have any tickets, can you help?’” Carlisle recounted of the band’s tallest fan. “He said, ‘Just go to the back door, ask for Dennis McNally, tell him you’re Rick Carlisle from the Boston Celtics and everything will be just fine.’ I said, ‘Really?’”

When the skeptical Carlisle pulled onto the loading dock, he jumped out of the car, walked down the ramp and asked his date, Donna, to wait for him to return.

“She said, ’What, don’t you have tickets?’ I said, ’Just give me a couple minutes here.’ So I walked down (the ramp), I knocked on the door, the whole thing ended up working out. I walked back up the loading dock ramp with two all-access laminates, one said Bill Walton, the other said Susie Walton.”

Eventually, Carlisle and Donna walked through a stage door and had a low-key conversation with group members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. It was a moment, and a gesture, Carlisle never forgot from someone who became a lifelong friend.

Carlisle married his date from that night 13 years later, and the bond between Walton and Carlisle only became stronger over the years.

The two often exchanged text messages, right through this year’s NBA playoffs and Carlisle relayed those messages to his players, explaining how much Walton enjoyed watching the Pacers and their track-like tempo — right up until the end.

“He was a game-changer on so many levels and in so many people’s lives over such a long period of time,” Carlisle said before the Pacers had a moment of silence before the game. “I talked to Luke (Walton) today for a few minutes, you know, they’re doing OK, but this has been tough, obviously, and it will continue to be tough. But what an amazing man. There will never be another.”

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA

Billionaire plans to take submersible to Titanic nearly one year after OceanGate implosion

Nearly one year after the OceanGate Titan submersible disaster gripped the nation, another ambitious businessman is looking to make the same trip.

Larry Connor, an Ohio businessman and billionaire , told The Wall Street Journal last week about his plans to prove that a dive to the Titanic wreckage site can be done safely when proper engineering is employed.

Shortly after news broke in June 2023 of the Titan's suspected implosion, Connor called up Triton Submarine's CEO Patrick Lahey, who had publicly criticized OceanGate's safety practices and called its CEO "predatory," and insisted they could and should make something better.

“[Connor said], you know, what we need to do is build a sub that can dive to [Titanic-level depths] repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption,’” Lahey told The Wall Street Journal.

Connor and Triton Subs did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Here's what we know so far about the newest Titanic-bound submersible.

Who is Larry Connor?

Larry Connor is an entrepreneur and founder of The Connor Group , a luxury real estate company based in Dayton, Ohio. His net worth is $2 billion, according to  Forbes , while Connor Group’s real estate portfolio is worth $5 billion.

Connor is a known explorer, having previously voyaged to the  Mariana Trench  and  International Space Station , told news outlets he wants to prove that a deep-sea submersible can be made safely and such a trip can be done "without disaster."

“I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told The Wall Street Journal.

The date of the intended dive has not yet been announced.

Triton Submarines' $20 million submersible

Connor told the Wall Street Journal he would be working with Triton Submarines, a company that builds submersibles for sea exploration at various depths.

The trip will use the Triton 4000/2 "Abyss Explorer." With a $20 million price tag, the two-person craft is described on the Triton website as “the world’s deepest diving acrylic sub," boasting the ability to descend over 13,000 feet (4,000 meters).

Lahey, the CEO, co-founded Triton with the now-retired Bruce Jones, the former of whom plans to accompany Connor on his mission, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade," Connor told the outlet. "But we didn’t have the materials and technology. You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago.”

What happened to the OceanGate Titan submersible?

On June 18, 2023, five people boarded a submersible created by the company OceanGate to visit the Titanic wreckage site 12,500 feet (3,800 meters) under the water.

This was OceanGate Expeditions' third annual voyage to the site, and each passenger paid $250,000 for the opportunity to view the wreckage, according to an archived itinerary of the mission.

Aboard the submersible was British businessman Hamish Harding; Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, members of one of Pakistan's most prominent families; French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet; and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.

The vessel was heavily scrutinized before departure for its design, made of carbon fiber and titanium and measured in at about 9 feet high, 8 feet tall, and 22 feet wide. The craft was said to have been piloted with a video game controller .

The submersible was not up to the task and imploded on its way down to the ocean floor. Communication between the Titan and its mothership stopped about 90 minutes into the trip. It is assumed the destruction of the vessel happened soon after.

A massive rescue mission ensued . Ultimately, The Titan's debris were found in five large parts on the sea floor about 1,600 feet from the Titanic's bow and the passengers were declared officially lost on June 22. Some human remains were later recovered.

Contributing: Haadiza Ogwude and Jason Rossi , Cincinnati Enquirer

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Have you gone down that Golden Road to unlimited devotion? Are you a true Deadhead? This Grateful Dead hat assures your place among the Dead's Tour Alumni. Featuring a relaxed, un constructed profile, this Grateful Dead baseball cap will fit most Dead Heads, and is adjustable by a cloth strap with a metal slide buckle closure. Made of 100% cotton enzyme-washed polo twill fabric.

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Walton helped Pacers coach earn NBA title, win over future wife with concert tickets on first date

ARCHIVO - El comentarista y retirado jugador de baloncesto Bill Walton durante una práctica para el Juego de Estrellas de la NBA, 19 de febrero de 2022, en Cleveland. Walton ha fallecido. Tenía 71 años. (AP Foto/Charles Krupa)

FILE - Television analyst Bill Walton stretches before the first half of an NCAA college basketball game between Oregon and Colorado, Jan. 2, 2020, in Boulder, Colo. Walton, who starred for John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins before becoming a Basketball Hall of Famer and one of the biggest stars of basketball broadcasting, died Monday, May 27, 2024, the league announced on behalf of his family. He was 71. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle reacts to a call during the first half of Game 4 of the NBA Eastern Conference basketball finals against the Boston Celtics, Monday, May 27, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle reacts to a call during the first half of Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference basketball finals against the Boston Celtics, Saturday, May 25, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle poured out his heart Monday night when he started reflecting on the impact of Bill Walton.

He recalled how Walton’s arrival helped turn the 1985-86 Boston Celtics into an NBA title team for the ages. Carlisle explained how playing with Walton extended his own career and how Walton’s generosity even helped Carlisle impress his future wife on their first date.

Yes, Bill Walton, who died Monday at age 71, was a character — one Carlisle thinks will always stand alone.

“To me, he was a living, breathing event in history just walking around,” Carlisle said before the Pacers and Celtics met in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. “He played drums for the Grateful Dead at the Pyramids in Egypt. He was a guy who did everything and there’s been a lot of talk today about how he speaks in hyperbole and stuff, but he just defiantly competed for every moment in life to be the greatest it could possibly be.”

While some considered the Hall of Famer’s uniquely free-spirited persona the product of a bygone, war-protesting era, Carlisle knew the Walton others didn’t.

The first time they met, Carlisle said he was shocked to see Walton eating a large roast beef sandwich instead of the expected vegetarian dish. At practices, Carlisle said, Walton raised the competition level so high the starters and backups argued about who won the most scrimmages.

But, when it was time for business, Walton went all in — on the court and off of it.

Perhaps no event showed more about Walton’s character than the moment Carlisle asked for tickets to a 1987 Grateful Dead concert in suburban Washington.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ve got a date with a girl I think is really cool, I’d love to go to the Dead show at Capital Centre, but I don’t have any tickets, can you help?’” Carlisle recounted of the band’s tallest fan. “He said, ‘Just go to the back door, ask for Dennis McNally, tell him you’re Rick Carlisle from the Boston Celtics and everything will be just fine.’ I said, ‘Really?’”

When the skeptical Carlisle pulled onto the loading dock, he jumped out of the car, walked down the ramp and asked his date, Donna, to wait for him to return.

“She said, ’What, don’t you have tickets?’ I said, ’Just give me a couple minutes here.’ So I walked down (the ramp), I knocked on the door, the whole thing ended up working out. I walked back up the loading dock ramp with two all-access laminates, one said Bill Walton, the other said Susie Walton.”

Eventually, Carlisle and Donna walked through a stage door and had a low-key conversation with group members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. It was a moment, and a gesture, Carlisle never forgot from someone who became a lifelong friend.

Carlisle married his date from that night 13 years later, and the bond between Walton and Carlisle only became stronger over the years.

The two often exchanged text messages, right through this year’s NBA playoffs and Carlisle relayed those messages to his players, explaining how much Walton enjoyed watching the Pacers and their track-like tempo — right up until the end.

“He was a game-changer on so many levels and in so many people’s lives over such a long period of time,” Carlisle said before the Pacers had a moment of silence before the game. “I talked to Luke (Walton) today for a few minutes, you know, they’re doing OK, but this has been tough, obviously, and it will continue to be tough. But what an amazing man. There will never be another.”

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA