Team USA Gear Is Hot In Beijing
In just two days, total sales from the U.S. Olympic Committee’s store on the ground in Beijing eclipsed the number of sales during the entire Athens Olympics. And that’s just the beginning.
The USOC expects to generate eight times the sales it did in 2004 before the Beijing Games end on Aug. 24.
“As our merchandise has gotten better, the demand has gone up,” said Bill Korbus, USOC associate director, consumer products. “There’s almost equity in the enterprise now because of the work that’s been done on our brand.”
The USOC’s store is set up in the bottom of USA House, the organization’s 42,000-square-foot hospitality center near Workers’ Stadium in Beijing. The store is 1,000 square feet, five times the size of the store in Athens and twice the size of the Torino store.
The hottest-selling item at the store is a red hoodie T-shirt made by Nike that costs $35 and features the Team USA logo, five rings and Beijing 2008. Other items selling well are Ralph Lauren polo shirts with the USA logo ($98) and T-shirts featuring Beijing in Chinese characters across the chest ($49).
“We do well with both Nike and Ralph Lauren because one is more of a sports brand that appeals to active people and the other is more of a lifestyle brand,” Korbus said. “It helps to appeal to both sets of people in the house.”
The organization has a bilateral agreement with the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee to sell items made by the USOC in Beijing. It can only sell those items to invited guests at USA House.
This is only the third time the organization has created a special store during the Olympics. The idea for one originated during the Salt Lake City Games when the organization’s three stores became so crowded that special guests, sponsors, families of athletes and business partners had to wait in long lines to buy Team USA merchandise.
The size of the store increased at each subsequent Olympics from 200 square feet in Athens to 400 square feet in Torino to 1,000 square feet in Beijing.
All of the items sold at the store are also available on TeamUSA.org, the organization’s Web site. Online sales are also tracking ahead of Athens and Torino, and Korbus expects sales from Beijing online to be “more than double” Athens.
Items are also sold at U.S. Olympic Team training centers, and at Ralph Lauren and Nike stores and select distributors.
Merchandise sales account for a mere 2 percent of the organization’s overall revenue. The organization’s tax filings from fiscal year 2007 show that it made $9 million from merchandise sales in 2004, the year of the last Summer Games.
Summer Olympics merchandise sales account for half of the organization’s total licensing revenue during each fiscal quadrennial. Winter accounts for 25 percent and non-Games periods count for the final 25 percent, Korbus said.
The Olympics merchandise life cycle typical begins with a steady build-up for months before the Olympics, heavy volume during the month of the Games and then a one-month tapering off period, Korbus said.
“We see a lot of opportunity to growing that,” he said. “We’re building a strong brand to help make licensing more viable, and it’s something we’re adamant about improving.”
