A title that keeps on giving to retailers

Slowly, now a week out since the title was clinched, the rush on Phillies merchandise has started to abate. But no one expects to see the "red sea" part until after Christmas at the earliest and, perhaps, not until the 2009 season gets under way.

No one provides numbers, either quantity or sales figures. Not Major League Baseball nor any of the store chains. Now, they'll be happy to put it in perspective.

Howard Smith Sr., the vice president of consumer products for MLB, made comparisons to what he called the hottest market that any sports league has ever seen, and that was in Boston in 2004 when the Red Sox swept the Cardinals and won their first World Series title in 86 years. "That set a new benchmark and no one thought anyone would sniff it," he said yesterday, "other than I think the people in the business suggested the Cubs would be the biggest ever. That would be a big number. But the Phillies, the fact that they are emulating 2004 is remarkable to me. The only thing that will get them close to 2004 is longevity. It's been a week now. Generally hot markets are over in a few days. But the fact that you had Thursday, Friday, Saturday and then Sunday, and it's still going this week, shows me that this is something special and there's no reason for this thing to die just yet.

"The retailers, especially given this economic climate right now, if they thought this thing was over you'd start to see things 50 percent off, you'd see them moving on in a heartbeat. They're not doing it. They're reordering goods. Modell's ordered, on Friday I was on the phone with him, a 100,000 more pieces. Everything. Across the board."

For one, the holidays are ahead. Chris Pizzo, a district manager for Modell's, said they're continuing to receive new merchandise and figure to do so through December. "We won't get the same things replenished, but we'll keep getting different stuff through the holidays," said Pizzo, who said their stores returned to normal hours Sunday. "We just got in more fleece today. We have our jerseys with the patches on the sleeve. We have our T-shirts with the logo on the sleeve. So we have a lot of new stuff just in the last two days. We'll have stuff straight through the holidays. It might not be front and center, but it'll be in our store, and as long sales dictate it, it will be front and center."
 
Everyone agrees that caps have been the biggest seller. Pizzo said so many were purchased that "some of our stores have them, but not many do." And MLB's Smith said that the hundreds of thousands of official locker room caps ordered have all been disbursed. "Those are completely gone," he said. "To give you a sense of the rate of the sell-through, I believe we were faster sold out on these caps as we were in 2004."

In general, fans will find that the World Series apparel is beginning to thin out. Scott Silnik, of the Sports Authority, said his stores had about "75 to 80 percent sell-through on all the products that we ordered." Those include the parade T-shirts, what he called same-day sellers, that sold out, and the T-shirts that had the Phillies roster listed on the back. "Those were real hot. As far as World Series merchandise, I don't know how much more ordering they're going to do on that any more. It probably will be more stuff that we carry year-round. It's getting to that stage." Silnik said they are planning to do more reorders on what he called the generic product, the jersey and T-shirts that the stores carried way before the championships. "I'm thinking it will still be a really strong item for us right through the holidays," he said.
    
Chris Streahle, director of marketing and advertising for Forman Mills, said they are hoping to bring more players into their stores, as they did during the postseason, but have less access now with those players "scattered all over the place with their families and vacation and everything like that." Related merchandise, such as photos and replica trophies, "are still trickling in. and we'll continue to get more winter-driven products. We're going to have a nice World Series section at least through the holidays."

One thing that Streahle said they've noticed is people buying for friends and family who live outside the region. "Tons of people, grandmothers, mothers, they have family in different states now. In the Army. We saw a lot of people come in and buying in bulk," he said.

At the Phillies' Majestic Clubhouse Store in Citizens Bank Parkthey're finally back to regular hours, but regular took on a new meaning during the postseason. Scott Brandreth, the team's director of merchandising, said the store was open seven days a week through October. As of yesterday the team was undecided whether to open the store this Sunday to capture some of the crowd attending the Eagles-Giants game. "You know, when we opened this place we experimented with keeping [the store open] during Eagles home games, but it didn't really work out for us that well," he said. "But in October we were open and we did outstanding that one Sunday; it was our Game 4 of the World Series and they had a game against the Falcons. We did great that day."

Brandreth said that quantities of the championship T-shirt and cap remain, but what he called some "generic World Series product that was kind of a one-and-done situation . . . we're out of a few of those styles. And another thing . . . there's a parade T-shirt graphic that our players wore as a hooded sweatshirt. I don't think we had that in stock. Unfortunately, MLB didn't make us aware that the players were going to wear it. We had the T-shirt ready and handy, but we didn't have the hooded sweatshirt. But we're trying to get that in. Besides that, we're doing OK. We're definitely, from where we were last Saturday, we don't have as much product, but we still have a decent amount of product left in the store."

Figure that product to be supplemented, at the ballpark and elsewhere around the region, with items specific to a few of the upcoming holidays. MLB's Smith said that in 2004 they brought together their top licensees to brainstorm new ideas that would bridge sales through to the next season, particularly in the Boston market. "We said, 'This is something special, so how are we going to continue to make it something special?' We came up with some really neat ideas. We did holiday editions of all the products, so you saw green and red editions of the hat, the T-shirt, things like that, with a little Santa Claus flavor on it. We followed up with Opening Day, and we did St. Patty's Day editions, so we really had a lot of fun with it. And, quite frankly, we just kept bringing new product to the marketplace and it just didn't end [until] after the season started. And, quite frankly, our intentions are to do the same thing now."

Smith said they'll meet next week in Las Vegas to talk about a merchandise push that will include a national ad campaign in December and, among other things, limited-edition items to sell during the holidays.

"Look, let's say we sell a million T-shirts," he said. "OK. So that's one design. Well, we're going to come out with a holiday edition; we're not going to sell a million of them. We're going to keep it more limited, keep it more fresh. So, to your point, a majority of people's Christmas and Hanukkah lists are going to include something with the Phillies."