Playing on a Winning Team Licensed Sports Products at Sports Fan and College Bookstores

By Genie Davis

From stadium team stores to college bookstores and local fan stores, licensed sports products are scoring touchdowns and home runs when it comes to sales.

At the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes Team Store in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., Denise Vasquez is the director of accounting and oversees the team store. She described the fan store as consistently having one number-one best-seller. “Our hats always sell best; they are simply number one. They’re popular because they do offer shade which can be important in our area, and mostly simply because they are something that people enjoy having and like to wear. Second, our top sellers would be novelty items such as our mascot Tremor dinosaurs. They’re popular with kids and they are also a great souvenir.” Another big seller at the store is the Quakes team blanket. “Especially at the beginning of the season, it can be chilly or windy here in the El Cajon pass, so people just love these soft sweatshirt blankets for the stadium, and to take home.”

To create attractive, attention-getting displays in the store, Vasquez said, “We group some like- items together, and we categorize by departments such as youth, ladies, menswear. The hats are placed throughout our merchandise mix. We have added a special new section this year which we are really highlighting,” she noted. That new section is for a minor league baseball first: a partnership with the Marvel comic universe. “Starting June 18th, we will be highlighting a display that features the Marvel theme ‘Defenders of the Diamond,’” Vasquez explained. “It includes characters like The Hulk, Black Panther, Black Widow, we have these characters with ‘Quakes Baseball’ on apparel along with the Marvel characters and ‘Defenders of the Diamond.’ One shirt features a mix of all the characters.”

She added that, “We have already put in our hat order for next year. And in 2023, we will also have a special Marvel shirt featuring our mascot, Trevor, showing him as a yoked-out muscular dinosaur superhero. We plan to add a new item to our team store Marvel line every year.”

Asked who buys the most licensed sports products and how the store appeals to these shoppers, Vasquez related, “It’s really a mix of everyone. For the blankets, everyone gets cold, kids, or adults, so they are popular across the board. The mascot items are mostly for kids, we even have foam claws that the kids just love. Women tend to come in and pick out shirts and other wearables for the whole family. So, we just try to keep a great mix of items that appeal to a wide range of our fans.” Additionally, she said, “With kids’ items, we try to place them lower on shelves so they can reach them and see them more easily. We also have a special separate kids merchandise section in the store.”

Across the country, at the Lions Pride college store in State College, Pa., Gift Buyer and Floor Manager Emily DeAntontio described top-selling licensed sports products as “Traditional team items such hats and T-shirts, car decals, and magnets. Hats and T-shirts are very popular for Penn State. They do a lot of ‘white out’ stadium games and so white hoodies are extremely popular.” She explained that “a ‘white out’ is a promotion to get everyone in the stands wearing white, so that the entire stadium appears whited-out. We have soccer and football white hoodies for those games.”

To make a strong display statement, DeAntonio said, “We keep items in individual sections. We have one that is all our sports apparel and hats, and one area that is decals and such. Everything goes in its own section, and we try to keep all our sports merchandise overall in one area.”

Purchasers are varied, however, “Most of our fan merchandise sells to people coming to watch the games, whether it is alumni, students, the general public – it’s a mix. They buy what is seasonal, volleyball in spring, football in the fall, for example,” she said. “In the summer, there are sports camps where elementary kids come and do sports on the Penn State campus, and we see that clothing, too, at that time. Parents and kids are both buying then.”

In Los Angeles, Calif., close to Dodger Stadium, The Fourth Quarter fan store sells a wide-range of sports team fan items, with a strong emphasis on Los Angeles-based teams. Manager Eric Nicholas said, “The bulk of our top sellers are for the local teams in all the major leagues. We do best with headwear and jerseys. We honestly don’t do as much novelties as we used to.” The store also offers an extensive array of lanyards, wallets, license plate frames, and lapel pins.

He added, “Our Dodgers major league baseball merchandise is almost year ‘round for us, while other items are more seasonal sellers. I think that is due to the fact that we’re literally just five minutes from Dodgers Stadium.”

“Apparel is always king, particularly Tshirts and polos. Anything with the longhorn image sells best, and seasonally, football fanwear is always the biggest part of the year.”

- Andrea Swanson, University of Texas Austin

To create notable displays, Nicholas explained that the store focuses on endcap displays. “We also have different racks and areas in the store to highlight different types of items, such as showcasing hats in just one area of the store. We are also heavy on showing our newest items on Instagram and Facebook. Social media displays are big.”

As to who visits and shops at the store the most, the audience is mixed. “Most are adults between the ages of about 18 to 50,” Nicholas said. “But we also have a mix of some kids. We have merchandise for all of them.”

At the University of Texas Austin, Andrea Swanson , souvenir and merchandise buyer for the campus bookstore, says top-selling licensed sports products include T-shirts, sweatshirts, polos, hats, and other apparel, as well as drinkware and automotive categories. “Apparel is always king, particularly T-shirts and polos,” she reported. “Anything with the longhorn image

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What Do You Do with Slow-selling Licensed Sports Products?

Slow-selling sports products?

While not common, as many sports products are strong sellers, college, fan, and team store officials described what they do with merchandise that doesn’t score big with shoppers.

At the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes Team Store in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., Accounting Director Denise Vasquez, who also oversees the team store, said, “At the end of the season we will put any merchandise that has not sold well on sale.”

At the Lions Pride college fan store in State College, Pa., Gift Buyer and Floor Manager Emily DeAntontio replied, “We usually keep them over to the next year. But, if an item is being discontinued for a newer style, then we will put it on sale at the end of the season. Some sports’ fan wear we keep out all year, such as football merchandise or volleyball.”

In Los Angeles, Calif., Eric Nicolas manages The Fourth Quarter fan store. Although Dodger items stay strong all year, other items are marked down when off season. At press time, a range of Lakers gear, as the NBA season ends, was available online at significant mark downs.

At the University of Texas Austin, Andrea Swanson, souvenir, and merchandise buyer for the campus bookstore, said, “We typically mark these items down if they are not selling.”

Mark Beskid, general manager of the Storm Baseball Team in Lake Elsinore, Calif., agreed. “I usually will try running a special on them. Nothing over the top, but maybe a percentage off or something like that. If it’s a product that’s old and for some reason I still have a lot of them on hand, sometimes I will run a ‘buy X product, and get the slow selling product for free or at a discount’ sale. Or something like ‘spend X and get slow selling product for free or at a discount’ as well.” ❖