The Royals franchise spent the last two seasons coming in number one MLB wide in t-shirt and other team merchandise sales, and rightly so.

When a Major League baseball team wins the pennant, and then later the World Series Championship, it always boosts not only spirits and morale in a city, but also revenues, citywide, and across several industries - t-shirts, apparel and merchandising are one of the first and foremost that benefit.

How amazing was it for Kansas City Royals fans to see their home team go two years in a row to the World Series, the second time coming home with the "Mother of all Baseball Trophies"? All during fall of 2015, Royals fans did their city proud by creating an ocean of royal blue t-shirts and other Royals apparel to show their team love at games, social media and throughout their everyday lives!

Immediately after this grandest of occasions, the Royals, who had not been in a World Series since 1985, held a celebration for the city, and some 800,000 Royals fans flooded the front of Union Station and surrounding streets with a new ocean of blue, this time consisting of Royals World Series Championship t- shirts.

All during the season, leading up to the pennant race, and afterwards when the Kansas City Royals defeated the New York Mets in the World Series, retailers all over Kansas City had a hard time keeping Royals t-shirts and paraphernalia in stock.

Don't forget about teen popstar Lorde, and her iconic song, "Royals" - one of her top viewed and shared images is one of her wearing a Kansas City Royals t-shirt - retired KC Royal George Brett sent her a Royals jersey, as well. Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain has also been photographed various times during the past two years sporting some sort of Royals t-shirt, jersey, or some article of clothing or other with the familiar Kansas City team's logo prominently displayed.

Even though every fan's Royals gear was still quite new from the 2014 pennant and World Series run excitement, t-shirt, apparel and other team merchandising sales were expected to be way up in 2015.

According to the Kansas City Star, each year, conservative estimates for MLB merchandising sales total between $150 million and $200 million annually, or roughly somewhere between $5 million and almost $7 million worth of t-shirts, pennants, posters, and other items.

Actual numbers and sales of total t-shirts and other team merchandising products are difficult to nail down, considering all the many venues where t-shirts and related team items are made available. Many unofficial and unlicensed channels are also available for such merchandising sales.

2016 promises to be a booming year for Royals t-shirt and merchandising sales, especially if the Royals take things all the way to the World Series Championship again. Some of the Royals' key players will not be rejoining the roster this year, but nevertheless, Kansas City fans are excited for another roller coaster of a season!