This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Erik May, 43, who is the president of Flags Unlimited, a business based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Business Insider has verified the sales figures. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.
We're a small business in the Midwest. Getting asked for Algerian, Moroccan, and dozens of Iraqi flags is certainly uncommon here.
Our flag sales are normally almost entirely US, state, and military flags. So when we started getting more and more inquiries about world flags during our offseason in January and February, I knew something was up.
Then I started putting it all together. The World Cup was coming, and it was about to change our business.
I never expected to run a flag company
I'm from West Michigan, and after 9/11, I joined the military. I thought I'd do a couple of years, but I ended up spending 14 years in the Air Force and served in Iraq.
After leaving the military, I started a few businesses. The flag business was something I'd never thought about. All I knew was that I liked flags and thought the American one was beautiful.
Two of my buddies were buying Flags Unlimited, and I was looking for a new challenge. So together, we took over the business in April 2025. It's been around since 1985, and for most of its history, it was strictly retail.
When we took over, our goal was simply to survive those first few months and build out the e-commerce side of the business. We certainly weren't looking ahead to the World Cup or America's 250th birthday, but we've definitely benefited from some tailwinds.
We knew we were in for a chaotic summer
The flag business tends to be seasonal, so we do most of our business between May and September. That's why it was particularly noteworthy when we started seeing an uptick during our offseason, when we normally budget for sales to be slower.
When we realized the World Cup would coincide with America's 250th anniversary celebrations, we knew we were in for a chaotic summer. Several months ago, we began adjusting how we operated.
We already had a large catalog of foreign flags, but in April, we started adding more of them to our orders so we'd have them in stock. The challenge is that you can plan, plan, plan, but if one person comes in and buys everything, the plan goes out the window pretty quickly.
There have been challenges in keeping up
Flags are a hot commodity right now. Day to day, we're processing orders as quickly as we get them, but we've run into supply chain issues because everyone is so busy. As demand for flags has picked up nationwide and worldwide, suppliers have been racing to secure raw materials.
Another challenge is that we don't want to overspend and be stuck with 10,000 America's 250th flags because they're probably not going to sell a whole lot afterward. The same goes for international flags. As teams move through the quarterfinals and semifinals, we'll adjust and hedge our bets on inventory. By the finals, I expect those countries to account for a large share of our flag sales.
Staffing is always an issue. We've increased our manpower to match where we think the next few weeks of the World Cup will take us. We hired my wife and two additional part-time employees.
These are all good problems to have, but they still need to be dealt with.
The World Cup has supercharged our business
Sales of our international nylon flags have more than doubled compared with last year, and overall sales are up 130% year over year.
Our e-commerce business is growing rapidly, and that didn't happen just because I'm a smart guy. There are bigger forces at play than that.
The World Cup, combined with America's 250th anniversary, has supercharged our business. We've seen tremendous national growth, and these events have definitely moved the needle for us. We've been fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time.
We never saw this coming
To some extent, we were blindsided by this. We didn't market for it. It just happened.
Soccer wasn't a big sport in the US when I was growing up, and most of what I know comes from watching "Ted Lasso." But I'm now well aware that this is the world's largest sporting event, and we're fortunate to have it in this country this year.
I think there are a lot of small businesses like ours that are benefiting from FIFA's decision many years ago to bring the World Cup to North America. Now, the thought of a little flag business in Grand Rapids participating in the World Cup, even in a very small way, feels incredibly surreal.
Joshua Nelken-Zitser is an award-winning Senior Reporter at Business Insider’s London bureau covering wealth, spending, and consumer culture.Through features, on-the-ground reporting, and As Told To essays, he explores how people use their money, from everyday spending to elite lifestyles, and what those choices say about modern life. His work focuses on the culture of money: how money shapes places and people, and how the world around them influences how they choose to spend.Joshua previously spent five years on the news desk, reporting from the US, across Europe, and the Middle East. In 2024, he received the Axel Springer Award for Change — Journalistic Piece of the Year and was highly commended at the British Journalism Awards for a multi-year investigation into subsidized gender-transition surgeries in Iran.His debut book (TRAUMA BONDS: How Generational Trauma Shapes, Divides and Connects Us) will be published by HarperCollins in January 2027.Got a tip? Email [email protected]. You can also follow him on X or Instagram.ExpertiseFeatures and reporting on affluent lifestyles, consumer spending, and the culture of money, alongside first-person stories about how people live and spend.Popular articlesWealth and spending:Series: Welcome to the 'Hamptons of England'Series: Living large in tiny homesI watched the ultra-rich descend on Venice for Jeff Bezos' wedding — and was shocked by how little locals cared'Clients bring back entire wardrobes': Tailors say Ozempic is reshaping Wall StreetThe new millennial flex: spending thousands on a birthday weekend at a chateauInternational features reporting:Iran will pay for your gender-transition surgery, but it comes with a cost — your dignityShe was killed by a look-alike she met on Instagram, police say. It thrust her family in Africa into a true-crime nightmare.How the trans alpaca ranchers of Custer County, Colorado, are forging a new frontierThe European housing crisis warping millennial life: The average Croatian lives with parents until 33Lithuania is the world's happiest place for under 30s, but it's also Europe's suicide capitalThe 'fairytale' French castles being used to shelter Ukrainian refugeesMost armies ignore autistic people. Israel is calling them up.
