Licensees that have contracts with both Louisiana State University and the University of Southern California expect near-record sales this year with two national champions to market.
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| Fans from both LSU and Southern Cal are buying up championship merchandise. |
"I wouldn't say it's doubled our pleasure, but it's certainly increased what we would have had with one national champion," said John DeWaal, vice president of global marketing for New Era Cap Co.
DeWaal added that the increases the company is seeing with the two schools isn't any less than it would have been if only there were only one champion. Based on previous experience, DeWaal said he's seen a school's orders increase 100 percent to 200 percent with a football national championship.
"The purists would like to have one singular champion [in college football]," DeWaal said. "But for people in the business of selling licensed product, it doesn't hurt to have a couple."
As Jim Malseed, president of the campus division at apparel manufacturer Gear for Sports Inc. and for Champion Custom Products, sees it, "You're talking about two programs that were, for lack of better words, starved for affection. There's truly a craze right now. It's a heck of a lot better than if Miami or FSU won; those schools expect national championships."
Still, even with two national champions and two hot markets, licensees of the two schools think their numbers will only be close to or slightly better than last year, when Ohio State won the college football national title.
For licensees of the Buckeyes, "last year was exceptional," said Scott Shuler, president of hat manufacturer Top of the World, whose sales were up between 25 percent and 30 percent last year thanks to Ohio State.
Ohio State took in $5 million in royalties last year — a $2.5 million
increase over its average in the three previous years, said Ohio State director of licensing Rick Van Brimmer, who added that unlike many schools, Ohio State did not increase its royalty fee as a result of winning the national title. LSU and USC both increased their royalties for championship product.
Ohio State's record numbers can be attributed to the fact that its national championship title in football was its first in more than 30 years, that Ohio State has one of the nation's largest alumni bases (310,000 living alumni) and that the university has a rabid football following, university officials said.
While LSU and USC both have healthy fan bases, the schools are smaller than Ohio State. LSU and USC have living alumni bases of 187,000 and 190,000, respectively, and enrollment numbers that are about half that of Ohio State, which has total enrollment of almost 63,000.
Even so, officials from both LSU and USC said they are on track to break licensed merchandise sales records this year.
LSU will increase its royalty take this year by at least 50 percent, said Heath Price, LSU's assistant to the vice chancellor, finance and administrative services.
The school took in $965,000 in royalties last year and hopes to generate at least that through national championship sales, he said.
Initial sales numbers were unavailable at press time, but Price said his department's projections were based on pre-order numbers as well as word-of-mouth stories from local and online retailers.
"For a lot of retailers the comment after the SEC Championship was, 'If you go to the Rose Bowl or Fiesta Bowl we'll order this much, but if you go to the national championship game you can double those orders, and, obviously, if you win the national championship then you're talking about a whole new realm,'" Price said.
Other indicators of a strong sales period included the 35 to 40 street vendors who lined the streets of Baton Rouge selling LSU national championship merchandise and the estimated 2,000 to 4,000 people who stood outside an Academy sports store immediately after the championship game to get their hands on national championship product, Price said.
"Things like that are so out of the ordinary for this community," he said. "But we have not had this kind of success before." The last time LSU won a national football championship was in 1958.
USC officials reported similar excitement around their team's football season. Though not a participant in the BCS national championship game, USC was voted No. 1 by The Associated Press and the coaches poll after the regular season and came away as AP's national champion after beating Michigan in the Rose Bowl.
Like LSU, USC could not yet provide specific numbers for sales of its national championship product.
That said, "It's been the biggest Rose Bowl ever [for sales], so I'd imagine the national championship will be huge," said Dan Stimmler, director of USC's bookstores, which carry about 80 percent of available licensed USC championship merchandise.
Rose Bowl merchandise averaged 1,000 items a day for 2½ weeks leading up the game, Stimmler said. Overall, USC bookstore sales for this year's Rose Bowl appearance saw a 100 percent increase in comparison to USC's Orange Bowl appearance last year, he said. E-commerce sales on uscthestore.com and usctrojans.com, sites run by the bookstore, jumped 300 percent, he said. USC, a private institution, would not provide specific financial figures.
