Phillygoat owner's daughter designs Phanatic shirt to fundraise for CHOP

Ryan Cassidy is doing very well for himself. 

He's the founder and creator of Phillygoat, an online store for Philadelphia sports-themed apparel that's taken off in popularity. He's also the Senior Global Marketing Manager at New Balance.

But of all those achievements, the one he's proudest of is the idea his 10-year-old daughter approached him with.

"I'm like, 'oh my god, I must have done something right here,'" Cassidy said.

"Because, I mean, I hope I'm being a good dad, but then something like that happens and I'm like, 'okay, this is awesome.' She's a special kid."

To understand his daughter Devin's story, you first need to learn her dad's.

Ryan Cassidy is now located in Boston for work, but he grew up in Springfield in Delaware County and graduated from St. Joseph's Prep in 1999. So naturally, he's been "Philly sports obsessed" his entire life.

    Phillygoat founder Ryan Cassidy meets the Phillie Phanatic for the first time. (Credit: Ryan Cassidy)
  

"I would always wear Phillies, Eagles, Sixers, Flyers shirts, but it was always the generic stadium merch," Cassidy said.

"I wanted something that was leaning a little bit more into that 'if you know, you know' fan culture."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cassidy had a bit of extra time outside of his day job with New Balance, so he decided to try his hand at making the kind of Philly sports shirts he himself would want to wear. 

Cassidy designed a few shirts. He set up the website. He learned as he went. His brother started wearing his shirts, and then his friends, and it grew from there.

Thus, Phillygoat was born.

"I've been able to leverage the things that really interest me," Cassidy said. 

"Philly sports, Philly fandom. I've always been an artist myself, a creative. [I] love marketing. And so it all sort of came together at this perfect storm of creating Phillygoat."

Cassidy comes up with "pretty much all" of the ideas. The designs he can draw himself, he does; for the others, he has a team of local artists he's worked with through the years.

The tongue-in-cheek designs reference everything from an Always Sunny title card-style "The Gang Teaches Ben Simmons How To Shoot" to a Kelly green rendering of Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker's infamous "E-L-G-S-E-S" misspelling. 

Phillygoat designs are current, they're funny, and they very much play into the 'if you know, you know' of being a Philly sports fan. You won't find them in an official team store, and that's exactly what draws customers.

Business got a huge boost during the Phillies' 2023 Red October run. Phillygoat had designed a red-and-white pinstriped version of the "Believe" sign from Ted Lasso. The shirt was selling well, and then on a whim, Cassidy shipped a few boxes of the shirts to the Phillies clubhouse.

"The next day, after we sent that, I was like, 'hey, just taking a shot at this. It probably won't amount to anything,'" Cassidy said.

But then the Phillies' official social media account posted a photo of Alec Bohm wearing the "Believe" shirt. 

"All these people started reaching out to us. So that really was a very big shirt for us, and sort of catapulted us to the next level," Cassidy said.

With that next level came visibility. Cassidy said it's been incredibly rewarding being able to influence Philly fan culture.

"I can't tell you how over the moon I get when I'm at Citizens Bank Park, and I'm walking around the concourse, and I see different people wearing my shirts," Cassidy said.

"I'm just like, 'oh my god, this is the coolest thing ever.' I don't think that will ever get old."

Cassidy has lived in Boston for the past ten years due to his day job with New Balance, which he described as "fairly demanding." Phillygoat has helped him stay connected with Philly culture.

"Really, my passion is in Philly sports. So I find myself waking up at 5 a.m., crafting emails, working on shirt designs, getting back to different customers. And then I do sort of a second shift after the kids go to bed, late at night," Cassidy said.

Although he's admittedly "very sleep deprived," Cassidy said he wouldn't change it for anything.

A benefit of Phillygoat's increased visibility – and something that Devin clearly took notice of – is that Cassidy is able to use his growing platform for good. He donates portions of his proceeds to different organizations near and dear to his heart. 

One of those partnerships is with the Hugh Thomas Douglas Memorial Fund, which was set up by former Eagle and current WIP radio host Hugh Douglas in honor of his late son who tragically passed in a car accident. Cassidy said Phillygoat donates monthly to that fund.

Another is with the Darren Daulton Foundation. The 1993 Phillies were a formational experience for 12-year-old Cassidy's sports fandom.

"I knew that I wanted to partner with the Darren Daulton Foundation just because him and his team really represented a huge reason why I'm so invested in being a fan. That was one of my favorite teams of all time," Cassidy said.

Since connecting with the Darren Daulton Foundation a couple years ago, Cassidy and Phillygoat have raised over $25,000 for the foundation. That money helps the foundation financially assist people suffering from primary malignant brain tumors, which is what led to Darren Daulton's early death at 55 years old in 2017.

Cassidy has also formed a semi-personal relationship with John Kruk. That relationship began with a single Twitter DM, where Cassidy told Kruk he was one of his favorite ballplayers growing up and that he'd love to partner with him on a shirt.

Cassidy didn't think Kruk would get back to him, but Kruk replied right away with his phone number and said he had an idea.

"And so I called him up. He is such a great guy. He was like, 'yeah, would love to do this with you,'" Cassidy said.

Cassidy said that usually when Phillygoat partners with people, those people ask for royalties, or for a portion of the profits. 

Kruk didn't want any of that. Instead, he connected Cassidy with the Battle Brothers Foundation, which Kruk is "particularly fond of." They help former military transition into civilian life, and over the past year and a half, Phillygoat has been able to donate over $15,000 to them through their collaboration with Kruk.

"I'll text [shirt ideas] over to John Kruk. He'll get back to me. Sometimes he'll just shoot me a text out of the blue, you know, 'wanna grab lunch' and things like that," Cassidy said.

"So next time I'm in the Philly area, I'm going to be getting lunch with Krukker, which will be fun."

All of Ryan Cassidy's work with charity clearly made an impact on his daughter, Devin Cassidy.

Devin, 10, is an aspiring artist herself. It's one of the ways she connects with her dad. They compete in drawing challenges, where they'll come up with a topic and then a family member will judge the winner. Every morning, Ryan sends her to school with a cartoon in her lunch box.

"Art has always been a bond that we've had with each other," Ryan said.

Even though Devin has grown up in Boston, Ryan, who watches almost every Phillies game, said he is "raising little Philly fans in enemy territory."

Ryan said he mentioned to Devin that she can design a shirt if she wants to, since a lot of the shirts they sell on Phillygoat, he designed himself. That's when Devin really started thinking about it.

She came back to Ryan with an idea: she wanted to draw the Phanatic, and she wanted the shirt's proceeds to help sick children in Philadelphia.

"I was like, 'oh my god. That's an awesome idea,'" Ryan said.

Devin drew the design. Ryan got it on the shirts, opened it up for sale on Phillygoat, and connected with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Foundation on the back end. The shirt is currently live on Phillygoat, and 10% of its proceeds go to the CHOP Foundation.

    Phillygoat founder Ryan Cassidy and his daughter, Devin, pose in the t-shirts Devin designed. (Credit: Ryan Cassidy)
  

Ryan said Devin's idea came from her own lived experience. Devin had a two-week stay in Boston Children's Hospital to treat her Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, or ARFID.

"She was really sick. She still has [ARFID], but she has different techniques to manage it. She just completely stopped eating, and lost a ton of weight," Ryan said.

The Cassidys got Devin into the ARFID program at Boston Children's Hospital. Ryan stayed with her for those two weeks. They continued to draw and create art together, and Devin bounced back.

"That's been a thing that has, I think it really helped shape her, just knowing that, hey, she went through something like this. She knows that there's other kids out there struggling," Ryan said.

"I think it all just, she just sort of connected all the dots, and it came together with this Phanatic shirt."

Thanks to the success of Devin's shirt, Ryan said Phillygoat and CHOP are now exploring implementing a similar program, where once a month or so, they could feature a CHOP patient's artwork on a shirt and donate a significant portion of the proceeds to the CHOP Foundation.

"That's just stuff that we're sort of spitballing now," Ryan said.

"But, I mean, this all started because of Devin wanting to, basically, in her words, help sick kids in Philadelphia, which is awesome."

What a domino effect Devin Cassidy has started. She's a special kid, indeed.