TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - There's one more week of Florida State football here in Tallahassee and that's welcome news to local businesses looking to make up losses from earlier this season when two games had to be postponed because of Hurricane Irma.
WTXL spoke to one business owner who said he's grateful FSU decided to reschedule the game with Louisiana-Monroe.
Shannon Sullivan is better known around here as "That T-shirt Guy" and he says he lost seven to eight thousand dollars in the two weeks where games were cancelled. But he's hoping the Noles' win against Florida plus that rescheduled game help get him back some of that money.
Sullivan says he sells about three to four hundred T-shirts every weekend there's a home game. He's a one-man operation, custom-designing most of his merchandise.
He says the Noles' losses this season, especially the one against Miami, hurt the business a bit. But he's got his fingers crossed that the team's recent winning streak, including that Gators game, brings some revenue back from the postponed games.
"The only time that this has ever happened -- been previous -- was 9/11," said Sullivan. "The first game was cancelled, and it was played on December first that year. I don't remember -- we'd lost games that year, too -- so, I don't remember it being all that great, but anything that I do Saturday will be better than anything I could've done that day."
Sullivan says he and others in Tallahassee's retail industry depend on a whole season of football, which typically means six or seven home games.
He's got a brand new T-shirt to celebrate the Noles' fifth straight win against UF. He said customers have told him they can't wait to get their hands on his latest design.
