When CF Nyjer Morgan joined the Brewers late in March, “no one inside the team's front office was thinking they had a marketing and branding bonanza on their hands,” but Morgan “has proved to be a two-tool player: he's a star on and off the field,” according to Rick Wood of the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL. Brewers COO Rick Schlesinger said, "At the beginning of the year, he had no footprint on the market. ... Now, I would say his celebrity is really something we did not anticipate. But it's real and it's certainly caught on with our fan base." There are “three different Morgan shirts in the team's two retail stores at Miller Park.” There is the Morgan player T-shirt and the "Tony Plush" T-shirt, named for “Morgan's alter ego.” There is also a new gold "Gotta Go" T-shirt, named for “a favorite Morgan saying.” Schlesinger didn't disclose exact figures, but said that the Tony Plush shirt is the “most popular selling T-shirt and generates three times the sales of any other player T-shirt.” Morgan's own player T-shirt “is in the top five.” The first 30,000 fans attending Friday’s Phillies-Brewers game “will get a special Tony Plush rally towel.” Schlesinger: "We're certainly taking advantage of his popularity" (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 9/8).
