With an attractive Stanley Cup Final matchup in Philadelphia vs. Chicago, and a guaranteed winner from a city starved for a hockey championship, NHL officials and retailers predict one of the best hot markets ever for championship licensed products.
Retailers expect big sales.
“Both of these teams have gone 35 years without a championship, so there’s tremendous demand,” said Steve Bontempo, vice president of e-commerce and catalog at GSI Commerce, which runs the online league store for the NHL, along with the NBA, MLB, NFL and NASCAR. “Pittsburgh [last year’s champion] was our best ever and right now, our orders are 2-to-1 for the Flyers over the Penguins. Chicago is 3-to-1.”
As always, locker room championship caps by New Era and T-shirts by Majestic/VF make up most of the if-win orders.
“I don’t see it being as big as the Phillies [World Series championship in 2008] for us, but any time a team gets on a run, consumers get crazy, it brings more people in stores, and that we like,” said Mitchell Modell, CEO of the 144-store Modell’s sporting goods store chain, which has 24 locations in and around Philadelphia.
“This is lining up as one of the best hot markets we’ve seen,” said Brian Jennings, the NHL’s executive vice president of marketing. “We have motivated retailers, pent-up demand, and teams that haven’t won since 1961 (Chicago) and 1975 (Philadelphia). While we’re always cautious, it could be a rocket ride, whichever team wins.”
Even before the Stanley Cup Final, sales are up. In the four semifinal venues, per caps were up 45 percent with the same number of games played as last year. Without revealing the actual per cap number, Jennings said the average per cap in the semifinals was the highest in a decade. Total in-venue merchandise sales are up 10.4 percent from 2009, while at the NHL Store in New York, sales are up 15 percent over last year.
