NEW YORK — There’s no bots about it.
The New York City-themed World Cup jerseys announced by Mayor Zohran Mamdani in June and released online from July 8 to July 16 sold out every morning within minutes, though the Mamdani administration tells POLITICO there was no foul play involved.
Frustrated shoppers suspected scalpers using automated bots to buy the jerseys within seconds during each morning’s release at 10 a.m., but New York’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services said it only detected two out of 3,500 orders that came from bots.
“The NYC soccer jerseys have been tremendously popular—thousands have attempted to purchase through CityStore online every day. One thousand very real, very happy New Yorkers have already picked up their jerseys in person—we have not seen widespread bot activity,” a DCAS spokesperson said in a statement.
The two detected bot orders were canceled, the spokesperson added.
The jerseys’ high demand and low supply is a more likely explanation for why they sold out so quickly. The website limited releases to 500 jerseys every morning, and averaged 25,000 visitors to the store during the week it was for sale.
DCAS said it used Shopify’s bot prevention services such as CAPTCHA tests and required in-person pick-ups to prevent automated purchases.