Griz wins mean big bucks for retailers

With the Grizzlies ranked second in the nation in the latest I-AA football poll, you can almost hear the whispers across Missoula: “National champs?”

A championship run would put the Grizzlies in the national spotlight once again, and it could also put a new Griz T-shirt in your closet.

Rob Reesman hopes that shirt is hanging in your closet too. 

Reesman, who owns The Shirt Shop, estimates that a national championship year brings in nearly $30,000 for his business.

When the Grizzlies previously won championships in 1995 and 2001, Reesman and his employees were rooting extra hard for the Griz to win.

“When they won, it was helter-skelter to get all the merchandise to the retail stores by 8 a.m.,” Reesman said.

He estimates that for each of those championships his company produced about 3,500 shirts.

“Let’s put it this way, when the Grizzlies take a national championship, they are in the top 30 in the nation in collegiate merchandise. That is what makes Montana unique – it is major league money,” Reesman said.

The Shirt Shop makes more than $1 million dollars in a typical year.

“The extra money that a championship can bring in is like the icing on the cake,” Reesman said.

The Shirt Shop only prints Grizzly shirts when they win a championship.

“It is such a cutthroat market, saturated with competition,” Reesman said. “I have bigger fish to fry.”

Some companies like to try their hand in this “cutthroat” marketplace just the same. ShirtWorks, located in Missoula’s Southgate Mall, is a Montana company with locations in Missoula and Bozeman. The store beckons customers to its Grizzly merchandise with a large Griz banner and display.

“Grizzly (merchandise) is usually our top seller, and this time of the year it definitely is,” said Kim Pickens, sales manager of ShirtWorks. “Our top sellers are our sweat shirts, followed by T-shirts.” The University gets a share of the profits, but the amount of business the merchandise generates for the store is worth it, Pickens said. The Bozeman store prints all the collegiate merchandise for both stores, Pickens said.

Champs Sports, located a few stores down from ShirtWorks, understands that people in Missoula aren’t just fans of the Grizzlies.

“Texas probably even outsells Montana stuff,” said Jace Lyons, manager of Champs Sports.  The University of Texas Longhorns football team was I-A national champions last year. Champs Sports, a division of Foot Locker, manufactures its own college-branded merchandise to be sold in their stores.

“All our T-shirts and sweat shirts that have a college logo, not made by Nike or Adidas, are made by us,” Lyons said.

When comparing prices of plain T-shirts and sweat shirts to those with a college logo on them, the logo raises the price of the merchandise anywhere from $5 to $20.  A typical cut a university receives on its branded items is 15 percent.

A winning athletics program makes the merchandise sell even more. Of the college merchandise Champs Sports had on display, all of them had a successful basketball or football team in the last few years.  Texas, Notre Dame and Montana lead football sales, while North Carolina, Duke and Gonzaga lead basketball sales, Lyons said.

“Our biggest time of the year is back to school/start of football season, followed by Christmas,” Lyons said.

Although other schools may sell well in Missoula, Grizzly merchandise is still very popular, and consumers are looking for merchandise that will match their personalities.

“There are only so many things you can do with a maroon or a gray shirt, you need to find something unique,” Reesman said about what kind of products sell best.

The UM Bookstore specializes in unique Grizzly items.  It seems as though they have a Griz logo on just about anything and everything you can think of.  The Grizzly logo can be found on numerous items including shot glasses, key lanyards, coffee mugs, picture frames and even a nearly $400 Grizzly-branded leather office chair. For those who want to be truly unique, the Bookstore has Grizzly apparel in pink and camouflage, and for those old-school Grizzly fans they have merchandise in retro copper and gold.

“If there is any doubt on how much demand there is for Grizzly stuff, come in the Bookstore on a Griz game Saturday, the lines go out the door,” said a UM Bookstore cashier.

Reesman and his employees at The Shirt Shop don’t deny this demand for Griz gear but know that another national championship will put demand through the roof.

So how will he react if the Griz are in the national championship game this year?

“If they lose, I’m out two grand because of prep and restocking fees, but if they win I’m lighting up like a Christmas tree,” he said.

The Grizzlies have appeared in the national championship game five times in the past 11 years – 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2004 – winning in 1995 and 2001.