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Marketing and Sponsorship

Cubs' World Series Merch Sales Hit Record Levels; Licensees Ready For Holiday Season

Cubs fans are making the team's first World Series title in 108 years the biggest hot market ever for MLB and its licensees. The questions remaining are how big it can be and how long it will last. MLB Exec VP/Business Noah Garden said the league was prepared for a huge spike, but even those projections have been surpassed. Garden noted sales for the 24-hour period after the Cubs' victory exceeded any prior hot market total for the 30 days after any previous World Series ended. Day 2 sales were about the same as last year’s total hot market. Accordingly, the sales explosion immediately after the Red Sox title in '04 and the aggregate total for the Giants title in '10 have already been surpassed. Garden: "We’re seeing numbers we just haven’t seen before." He added that the average total sale on MLB.com was up around 35% from prior postseasons. Licensed sports specialist Fanatics expects the Cubs hot market to be twice as high as its previous high -- the Broncos' Super Bowl 50 win earlier this year. MLB licensees are expected to add holiday thematics to Cubs championship merch in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Licensees that do not typically produce championship merch, including Stance, Vans and Tommy Bahama, will produce championship products in time for holiday sales.

CAP & BOLD: Longtime MLB exclusive on-field cap licensee New Era had initial meetings to plan for a Cubs win as far back as February. Now, New Era is producing an unprecedented amount of championship Cubs product. For the first time, there were two different championship caps (one grey, one blue) on the field and in the locker room after Game 7. Overall, New Era is producing 125 different SKUs of Cubs championship products. Sources said that the company is looking to sell as many as a million Cubs championship caps.Garden: " A million caps seems like an attainable number." The Royals' World Series win last year set the previous sales record for the hat brand. New Era Baseball Category Dir Tony DeSimone said current projections have his company selling two to two-and-a-half times as many caps as last year, in terms of dollars. Lids VP/Marketing John DeWaal said his chain of 1,340 stores started preparing for the possibility of a Cubs win in June. Today, Lids.com listed 82 pages of Cubs championship products. DeWaal: "It’s a scramble to meet demand, but that’s what we expected. Typically, hot markets last for a few days, but you still see people outside Wrigley Field this week soaking it all in and buying.’"

CHILD'S PLAY: Youth apparel licensee Outerstuff Founder & CEO Sol Werdiger said the Cubs win produced the biggest hot market ever for his company across any league, with sales for September through today two-and-a-half times that of any previous year. Dick's Sporting Goods and Lids were among his biggest retail customers. Werdiger said kids championship T-shirt sales have already exceeded 400,000 units. DeSimone added, "Social media is really driving sales for us. Cleveland would have been a record market also. The Cubs winning just took it into the stratosphere."

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