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Hannah Kolbeck bought herself two Portland Thorns jerseys in 2025: one bearing number 8 and the name of former midfielder Hina Sugita and a goalkeeper kit that featured the last name of Bella Bixby. She didn’t think about what else was on the chest until the jerseys arrived at her doorstep.
It was one word, in lowercase script, writ huge: “ring.” The name of a home security company that has become a cog in the American surveillance state.
Kolbeck recoiled. “By that point, I had heard that they were giving surveillance info to police without a warrant,” she says, “which is just heinous.”
The Amazon-owned company has come under fire for numerous privacy concerns, including how it gathers and stores personal information about its users (as well as those passing by on the street). In particular, Ring’s critics—especially the Electronic Frontier Foundation—zoom in on a deal the company struck last year that allowed police to request footage from customers who have Ring doorbells, without going through a formal warrant process to obtain the footage. (Ring canceled the partnership after widespread outcry.)
As a constitutional law nerd who works in tech, Kolbeck takes particular issue with the data companies can gather by tracking users—especially when that data is then shared with a government agency.
So, when the jerseys showed up with “ring” stamped across the front, Kolbeck didn’t wear them.
She wasn’t alone.
Lots of people hate wearing sports jerseys with corporate logos larger than the team or player names. But when the company sponsoring your favorite team starts to remind people of Big Brother? Well, that’s when the Rose City Riveters—the supporters group for the Portland Thorn—decided to take matters into their own hands with a “Ring Toss.” The group set up a table for fans to swing by before the match to remove the logo from Thorns jerseys.
“Simply because an organization accepts money doesn’t mean that I need to advertise for them,” says Hazel Wheeler, who’s been cheering on the Thorns for the past decade.
Fans have voiced displeasure with Ring since the Thorns announced the sponsorship, worth at least $2.6 million, in February 2025. The Thorns, owned by the Bhathal family, stand by the deal.
“The Portland Thorns are proud of our multiyear partnership with Ring, which represents a meaningful and league-leading investment in women’s sports,” the Thorns wrote in a statement to WW. “This support has been impactful across our organization—from directly supporting our players to helping elevate community programming and activations.” Ring also supports the Thorns’ player development as the presenting partner of the Thorns Academy Gala, the club said.
Many supporters remain uneasy. So when Minnesota United fans started replacing the Target logo on their club’s jerseys with a “rebel loon” in February, the Riveters realized they could do the same.
Ahead of the Thorns’ preseason match against CF Monterrey Femenil and their home opener facing Seattle, a couple of Riveters sat behind a folding table with gloves and handheld steamers. Every once and a while, someone would come up to Wheeler with a Thorns jersey they’d bought last year, and she’d don gloves and steam the front of the jersey until the Ring logo peeled off.
Fans were eager to discuss their various reasons for showing up.
Tiff Weekley had already been planning to cover their jersey’s Ring logo with tape this year, especially after learning more about the company. “I strongly stand with our immigrant communities and strongly stand with undocumented communities, our vulnerable communities,” they say. “Understanding that those surveillance systems were used for things other than just something that might seem more innocent was really upsetting to me.”
A number of fans who spoke with WW said they believe Ring is sharing data with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a rumor the company strongly denies. “Federal agencies (including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) cannot make requests for videos through Community Requests,” a Ring representative recently wrote in a customer service forum. “This feature is designed for local public safety agencies only…Videos are only shared if you, the customer, choose to share them.”
For 17-year-old Miley, the discomfort with the sponsorship came from watching Ring’s ad during this year’s Super Bowl. The ad showcased Ring’s ability to use a network of home security cameras to surveil neighborhoods—in the inauspicious name of looking for a lost pet. The video caused national backlash, which culminated in Ring ending its partnership with the surveillance company Flock Safety.
As Miley looked into the company more, she began to take further issue with the partnership.
Miley likens the issues around surveillance to George Orwell’s 1984, which she recently read for a high school class. And she doesn’t think the government having the ability to access personal data about its citizens bodes particularly well for anyone’s individual autonomy.
So she got the logo removed from her Sugita and Olivia Moultrie jerseys.
Ring Toss is far from the first time that Portland sports fans have protested their team’s corporate sponsorships. The Portland Timbers dropped their jersey sponsor, DaBella Exteriors, last year after The Oregonian reported the company’s CEO had been accused of repeated sexual harassment. Portland’s chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, among other groups, advocated against the Trail Blazers’ partnership with military contractor Leupold & Stevens, which led to the team ending its six-year relationship with the company in 2019.
Jules Boykoff, a professor of politics and government at Pacific University who studies media and sports, isn’t surprised by the backlash.
“Many fans across the United States and wider world already feel like professional sports franchises tend to prioritize profit-making over the needs of fans and athletes,” Boykoff told WW in an email. “Lacquer on top of that the fact that Portland soccer culture has a long history of standing up to owners whose moneymaking schemes are misaligned with fan values and the additional fact that we’re living in a hyperpolarized political moment and you have a recipe for outspoken disgruntlement. Plus, Ring’s willingness to serve as a tool of techno-authoritarianism makes it a wholly reasonable target of fan derision.”
For their part, the Riveters are trying to offset fan concerns that the jersey sponsorship is a sign of complicity with a surveillance apparatus that has an outsized impact on immigrants. They launched a new scarf ahead of the Thorns’ home opener, with proceeds going to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition and Equity Corps of Oregon. And while the logo is still front and center in the Thorns’ branding, the group plans to help fans de-Ring their jerseys ahead of home matches at The Axe & Rose.
So, how easy is it to steam off a jersey logo?
Although the logos from last year’s jersey come right off (with a little sticky residue), the crew has faced more difficulty with the 2026 kits. As it stands, the Riveters are still brainstorming ways to remove or otherwise obscure the brand.
But they are working on it.
