Old Navy Shirt claims Texans were 1961 AFC champs

This T-Shirt, printed by Old Navy shows the Houston Texans, not the Houston Oilers, as the 1961 champions (Credit: ESPN)

According to ESPN, clothing company Old Navy has recently sold t-shirts claiming that the Houston Texans were the 1961 AFC champions.

After word circulated on the Internet about the mistake, the company will be pulling the items from its website and from stores, a company spokesperson told ESPN.com.

“The NFL clothing sold in our Old Navy stores is created by a third party sports licensing company,” said Edie Kissko, a spokesperson for Gap Inc., which owns the Old Navy brand, in a statement. “It is our intention to always provide the best merchandise to our customers and NFL fans. We apologize for this error and are removing the T-shirts.”

It was the Houston Oilers that won the 1961 title but that was the AFL title, no the AFC, which did not come into existence until the 1970 merger. In 1998, the Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee and eventually became the Titans.

The Texans were an expansion franchise that came into the league in 2002.

This is not the first high profile sports blunder for the Old Navy brand. Last year, the company had to replace thousands of T-shirts with college logos after the shirts had “Lets Go” on them, missing an apostrophe. Old Navy reprinted the shirts with the correct punctuation.

As of 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, the web page selling the Texans shirt on the Old Navy page was still active.