Byline: Amy Bentley
Jun. 9--Whether it's a basketball jersey, car flag or an 8-inch-tall Kobe Bryant bobblehead doll, sales of Los Angeles Lakers merchandise are skyrocketing in Southern California as the team vies for a third consecutive NBA title.
Ventura County sports stores have reported massive sales increases over the past month of all things Lakers. It's a trend that store owners and marketing experts say is a result of a more commercialized society that is plugged into the Internet, which has expanded merchandising opportunities.
The sports merchandise market is huge, with an estimated $10.5 billion in domestic sales last year, according to Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, a weekly trade publication in Charlotte, N.C. Sales of NBA gear, for example, account for an estimated $1 billion of the total, according to the journal, which tallied sales figures from licensed goods. 'People make a buck any way they can, and the Lakers are big business,' said Robert Fisher, president of Fisher & Associates, a public relations, consulting and marketing firm in Woodland Hills. In the 1950s, sports fans mostly collected team pennants and trading cards.
And professional athletes autographed baseballs for free. But the computer revolution beginning in the 1980s expanded merchandising opportunities for sports teams, athletes, actors and others in the entertainment business, said Fisher, a nationally recognized media analyst and 33-year veteran of the marketing business.
Sports merchandise is mass-marketed globally and authentic autographed items of top athletes fetch thousands of dollars. A die-hard fan can go online to buy an autographed Olympic jersey that Michael Jordan wore on his way to winning a gold medal in 1984. The price: $3,995. 'This is just a modern-day pennant, taking it to another level,' Fisher said.
The popularity of sports teams' merchandise accelerated about 15 years ago with the proliferation of sports bars, which decorated their walls with team clothing and sports memorabilia, said John Gerlach, professor of economics and finance for the College of Business at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. Gerlach, who teaches courses in the college's Sport Management Program, added that Internet sites like eBay led to a global market. 'Some of it is reaching back to recapture your youth when you went to a baseball game with your dad,' he said of fans who purchase sports teams' T-shirts, baseball caps and more. Even before the Lakers defeated the Sacramento Kings last Sunday night to win the Western Conference Championship, Lakers clothing and other merchandise were hot-selling items. Several businesses would not reveal their sales in terms of dollars, but they reported double-digit percentage increases.
At Pro Image, a sports store in Ventura's Pacific View mall, sales of Lakers goods are up about 50 percent this year compared to a year ago and up 80 percent in the past two to three weeks, owner Danny Felix said. In fact, Lakers gear currently accounts for about 90 percent of the store's total sales, added Michael Felix, the store manager and Danny's brother.
Pro Image sells Lakers clothing, key chains, car accessories and a host of other items. Danny said the two most popular items are Lakers jerseys and Kobe Bryant or Shaquille O'Neal bobblehead dolls -- which sell for $19.99.
Danny said he's sold more than 100 of them in the past week and a half. In the past month, he estimated the store sold close to 300 Lakers shirts.
'Everybody likes to be associated with the winner,' Danny said of the Lakers franchise that has won the NBA championship the past two years and seven times since 1972. And many sports experts anticipate the Lakers will knock off the New Jersey Nets in the current finals series to collect a third-consecutive championship ring. At the Pacific View mall's Foot Locker store, Lakers hats and jerseys are selling like mad, and sales have doubled since the beginning of the playoffs, said Manager Mike Thompson. 'When the Lakers do well and the spotlight's on them, people want to be a part of it,' Thompson said.
The Lakers craze, of course, extends beyond Ventura County. Sales of Lakers goods are way up all over Southern California, said Claudia Reich, marketing vice president for Sport Chalet, which has 26 stores in California, including one in Oxnard. Three years ago, Sport Chalet stores carried only a few Lakers items. Now they carry a dozen because 'there's been a demand for it,' Reich said.
Sport Chalet has used a creative marketing plan to fuel demand for Lakers merchandise. Reich said the company has experienced double-digit percentage sales increases each year for the past three years, partly thanks to an exclusive ticket program with the Lakers and Adidas sportswear. Any shopper who buys an Adidas product during the regular basketball season gets a voucher for two $10 Lakers tickets, Reich said. Fans who attend Lakers games at Staples Center in Los Angeles also are good customers. Staples Center has a 6,000-square-foot store called Team LA, where Lakers merchandise and goods from other sports team are sold. Since the NBA playoffs, sales of Lakers items have been up between 75 percent and 100 percent, said Alan Fey, the Staples Center's director of merchandise.
The most popular Lakers items on sale at Team LA are what Fey called the more 'fanatical' things, such as $12 purple and gold wigs and the bobbleheads.
SPORTS MERCHANDISING
2001 sales of licensed goods from league teams and other sports properties:
National Football League: $2.5 billion
Colleges: $2.5 billion
Major League Baseball: $2.3 billion
NASCAR: $1.2 billion
National Basketball Association: $1 billion
National Hockey League: $900 million
All others: $100 million
Total U.S. domestic sales: $10.5 billion
SOURCE: Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal
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(c) 2002, Ventura County Star, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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