Frustration

hickoryhouse · December 22, 2007

I'll bet this has probably been discussed here before but i have a question about something that is really annoying to me. Why is it that seemingly every other div 1 school has their colors and logos everywhere and on sale, except us? is there a reason that our school refuses to promote itself via material schwag? That can't be good for us...

ParksAndRecRick · December 22, 2007

Very simple. Not enough merchandise sales. It is a free market world! What sells is what retailers handle!

Mean Green Matt · December 22, 2007

I was at a Champs Sports in Garland last week and they had two different t-shirts, a hat, and a beanie. I asked one of the guys working there why that was all they had and he said the University won't allow them to produce most of the merchandise that we want. Not sure if this is true or not, but he put the blame on the marketing department for athletics.

meangreendork · December 22, 2007

Sounds about right. Whomever handles the licensing is really dropping the ball, and this is a good time to take that ball and run it since UNT has a lot of eyes on it these days.

hickoryhouse · December 22, 2007

I can't imagine Butler or teams like that having more marketing punch than we do and I see their stuff more places than ours! I just think with the buzz about us right now it would be a great time to add a little punch to our marketing push...

StealthEagle84 · December 22, 2007

I was at a Champs Sports in Garland last week and they had two different t-shirts, a hat, and a beanie. I asked one of the guys working there why that was all they had and he said the University won't allow them to produce most of the merchandise that we want. Not sure if this is true or not, but he put the blame on the marketing department for athletics.

This is the same that I've heard in the past too. Whatever the problem is, it needs to get fixed.

NT80 · December 22, 2007

I can't imagine Butler or teams like that having more marketing punch than we do and I see their stuff more places than ours! I just think with the buzz about us right now it would be a great time to add a little punch to our marketing push...

I believe it has to do with CLC, the Collegiate Licensing Agreement (the little tags that say Official NCAA apparel), FFR can tell you all about it. Basically it restricts merchants from carrying CLC products unless they sign some agreements. The best thing you can do is call the Athletic Dept and tell them your story of how stores can't get the NT stuff they want to carry. Maybe some year they will finally get the hint? <_<

hickoryhouse · December 22, 2007

I believe it has to do with CLC, the Collegiate Licensing Agreement (the little tags that say Official NCAA apparel), FFR can tell you all about it. Basically it restricts merchants from carrying CLC products unless they sign some agreements. The best thing you can do is call the Athletic Dept and tell them your story of how stores can't get the NT stuff they want to carry. Maybe some year they will finally get the hint?

I keep forgetting that as a contributing alum now i have a voice, sort of. I think that i wil call the athletic dept. I never thought of that. Granted it probably won't matter mcuh but it is worth a shot.

ParksAndRecRick · December 22, 2007

Sales!

AnotherEagleFan · December 22, 2007

Sales!

Gotta agree with you... Southern Miss has the same problem... LSU, Alabama and Auburn all outsell us. Therefore they get the shelf space outside of our very local market (Hattiesburg).

ADLER · December 22, 2007

Sales!

I respectfully disagree.

Exlusivity contracts alter the laws of supply and demand that would exist in a free market.

For some reason the University only contracts with establishments that price gouge customers on their North Texas apparel purchases.

As fans there is NOTHING that we can do about the situationexcept lay back and enjoy it. Rising demand has in no way altered the pricing structure for those retailers.

If anyone disagrees with me, please tell me the names of more than two retal stores that I could walk into today and buy name brand North Texas polo shirts. What is the stock position of the shirts at those two stores (quantity in variety of sizes) and what are their prices.

ParksAndRecRick · December 23, 2007

Can't. Sales doesn't justify!

Bryan316 · December 23, 2007

By being sold only on campus and through the athletic department, merchandise prices can be kept 50% higher than they rightfully should be. A t-shirt with a simple screened graphic should be $10-15 depending on size and complexity, not $20 for the most basic of designs. The new mini-helmets are $20 at drugstores in Denton, yet $30 from the university. I know sales and the CLC play a part in what and where items are sold, but sales can't improve if there aren't items to be purchased.

ParksAndRecRick · December 23, 2007

HickoryHouse, Adler, and the Rest---I am just having some fun! I remember FFR talking about this years ago. It really is surprizing and dissapointing! Hopefully, it will approve in future years!

ParksAndRecRick

hickoryhouse · December 23, 2007

I just want simple things, like to be able to see my alma mata's stuff being sold in the same little piece of cyberspace as Butler, and creighton...... There is really no reason that there are so many schools marketing themselves successfully and we can't seem to find even a mention of our logo anywhere outside of Denton County......

ADLER · December 23, 2007

I just want simple things, like to be able to see my alma mata's stuff being sold in the same little piece of cyberspace as Butler, and creighton...... There is really no reason that there are so many schools marketing themselves successfully and we can't seem to find even a mention of our logo anywhere outside of Denton County......

The contrast was downright sad at the Oklahoma State basketball game.

Almost every one of their fans were wearing nice collared orange OSU shirts, and many were even wearing OSU jackets.

Very few North Texas fans were wearing UNT gear, and the overwhelming majority of those were cheap looking give-away tee shirts.

Few people buy nice North Texas gear because it's not readily available at affordable prices.

This year Voertman's only sold one green polo shirt with the North Texas logo. It was a 100% polyester dri-wick golf shirt made by Antigua in Indonesia. It was also over $50.00. They were nice enough, but certainly not the quality available for other schools at retail stores everywhere and the price was twice as high.

Voertmans was aware that they wouldn't be able to sell many of them at that ridiculous price, so they only stocked 48 of the shirts to last the whole season.

That is simply poor merchandising.

FirefightnRick · December 23, 2007

I asked one of the guys working there why that was all they had and he said the University won't allow them to produce most of the merchandise that we want. Not sure if this is true or not,

That is absolutely not true at all. Champs is a retailer. They produce nothing. I'll answer this in more detail later on. But in a nutshell, it's North Texas' fault that we face the dilemma that ADLER posted above and this dilemma could easily be fixed, making sure retailers such as Champs carry our stuff.

Rick

Edited December 23, 2007 by FirefightnRick

NT80 · December 23, 2007

The contrast was downright sad at the Oklahoma State basketball game.
Almost every one of their fans were wearing nice collared orange OSU shirts, and many were even wearing OSU jackets.
Very few North Texas fans were wearing UNT gear, and the overwhelming majority of those were cheap looking give-away tee shirts.
Few people buy nice North Texas gear because it's not readily available at affordable prices.
This year Voertman's only sold one green polo shirt with the North Texas logo. It was a 100% polyester dri-wick golf shirt made by Antigua in Indonesia. It was also over $50.00. They were nice enough, but certainly not the quality available for other schools at retail stores everywhere and the price was twice as high.
Voertmans was aware that they wouldn't be able to sell many of them at that ridiculous price, so they only stocked 48 of the shirts to last the whole season.
That is simply poor merchandising.

I blame it on UNT. The school/athletic department needs to look at it as advertising and release the trademarks. If the restrictions are so high that merchants can't get quality items for lower costs then fans won't and can't buy it thus won't and can't wear it. Just more small thinking.

FirefightnRick · December 23, 2007

I blame it on UNT. The school/athletic department needs to look at it as advertising and release the trademarks. If the restrictions are so high that merchants can't get quality items for lower costs then fans won't and can't buy it thus won't and can't wear it. Just more small thinking.

One of the way's I have suggested to correct this is SELF licensing rather than having CLC do it for us. The arguement for having a national licensing company such as CLC to police your logos is that you don't want rogue manufacturers stealing and misusing your logos. My arguement to this is, "With the current situation with our logos and name as it is nation wide, would it truly hurt us if some guy in up state New York pirated our logo to sell unlicensed North Texas gear to a grocery retail in New Jersey?". Secondly, is it worth the price of having to pay the middle man(CLC) to keep this from happening, even if it were to ever actually happen?. No, of course not. If anything it helps us do what we have been trying to do all along. Get our name out there.

Again, I'll post more on this later on.

Rick

GreenAlums · December 23, 2007

I'll bet this has probably been discussed here before but i have a question about something that is really annoying to me. Why is it that seemingly every other div 1 school has their colors and logos everywhere and on sale, except us? is there a reason that our school refuses to promote itself via material schwag? That can't be good for us...

CLC has a little to do with it. Mostly it's because we don't sign an agreement with a company that wants to do more than do on-line sales and sell at events. That's quick easy cash for them and a lot less paperwork. We (UNT) need to sign an agreement with a company that will do a full sales campaign for us. What two schools in the DFW do you see the least amount of spirit wear on those kiosks in the mall. SMU and UNT. Guess what?? Both UNT and SMU have the same company signed to do spirit sales....at games and on-line. It is a lot OUR fault, not CLC and/or sales. We have over 170,000 living alumni and over 100,000 of those live in the DFW area. Don't tell me they and their kids and maybe evern their friends wouldn't buy something if it were in the stores or the mal kiosks.

As our fellow poster shopmeangreen if you want to know the truth of it all.

FirefightnRick · December 24, 2007

CLC has a little to do with it. Mostly it's because we don't sign an agreement with a company that wants to do more than do on-line sales and sell at events. That's quick easy cash for them and a lot less paperwork. We (UNT) need to sign an agreement with a company that will do a full sales campaign for us. What two schools in the DFW do you see the least amount of spirit wear on those kiosks in the mall. SMU and UNT. Guess what?? Both UNT and SMU have the same company signed to do spirit sales....at games and on-line. It is a lot OUR fault, not CLC and/or sales. We have over 170,000 living alumni and over 100,000 of those live in the DFW area. Don't tell me they and their kids and maybe evern their friends wouldn't buy something if it were in the stores or the mal kiosks.
As our fellow poster shopmeangreen if you want to know the truth of it all.

That's on site retail which I don't believe has anything to do with off campus retail. But I agree there's no way it would not sell if it were on the shelves. Everytime I go into the lidz at Grapevine Mills there seems to be only a few left of our hats. I'll ask if they have any more and the clerk usually say's they are sold out as was the case with that seafoam green and grey and white Exes Logo hat I bought back in the summer.

Last time I brought this up with university officials it was agreed upon that CLC was doing nothing for us, nothing!

Rick

Edited December 24, 2007 by FirefightnRick

ShopMeanGreen · December 24, 2007

I believe I am likely the only CLC/UNT licensed person on the board so I will put my 2 cents in. I feel there is a combination of problems and I am going as fast as I can to help with the problem. 1. The CLC is doing nothing to help but I don't think they have anything to do. CLC is contracted by the University to make sure the licensing rules set by the University are followed, period. The University makes ALL of the decisions on what, who, why when and how everything is produced. Everything that I send to CLC for approval including what, and who I can sell to goes to UNT for final approval. The licensing is very complicated to follow, ie if I want to sell a T-shirt to Wal Mart and the same shirt to Voertmans there are 2 different catagories UNT has to approve me to sell to, Mass Merchant and Bookstore. I have recently been approved to sell in all catagories which includes all of the wholesale market. CLC gets a very small cut to provide this service. NOTHING is done by CLC that the University doesn't tell them to do. CLC other than be complicated has nothing to do with the problem. 2. UNT has somewhat of an exclusive deal with Advanced-online, which provides retail at sporting events and online. Voertmans, University Bookstore and ShopMeanGreen.com are allowed in Mean Green Village but not in any other venue. Advanced-online DOES NOT do anything wholesale to other retail vendors as far as I can tell. UNT pretty much gave them the best piece of the pie but the don't put any product into the market other than their web page and sporting events. UNT should have gone with a full service company that can provide merchandise to the wholesale market, online and at sporting events. The company should also have a vested intrest in North Texas and want to provide product for North Texas (nice stuff at a nice price, correct color etc) as far as I can tell there is only one company that can do that.....YES, ME. I is expensive to play in this market and I don't sell enough to justify the cost. If I can sell more I can advertise more, hire more employees, send sales staff into the stores etc. Things have improved and I will soon be in the wholesale market. 3. The only way Sports Authority (as an example) can buy North Texas merchandise is for someone to produce it that is in "the market". The managers tell me the buyers can't get any. Doing all of this by myself takes a lot of time. The contract with Advanced-online took place without me ever knowing about it...they should have opened the door to see what else was available. 4. BUY my stuff. As soon as I start getting things in stores I will let everyone know where to find it. 4. ASK the store manager where the NT stuff is. Tell them to go online to find me. UNT needs to know who the suppliers are, which they should already know. I have alredy increased the size of my shop and added a mass production machine. I am almost ready to go. Whose fault is it that NT merchandise is not available? ...NT, stores, fans, me for not going faster. I will continue to go as fast as I can but there are a lot of pieces that need to fall into place.

I'm sorry this is so long, any questions please ask.

Thanks for reading, Todd

Edited December 24, 2007 by ShopMeanGreen

ADLER · December 24, 2007

Wasn't this a Helwig agreement that sadly has been inherited by the current leadership? Can the contract be cancelled wihout significant financial loss?

Do any schools pursue merchandising independant of the collegiate marketing companies? If so, which ones, and how well are they doing?

ShopMeanGreen · December 24, 2007

The contract with Advanced-online started just prior to the 2005 season as I remember. I have no idea how long the contract is etc. Most all of the major schools use CLC. Self licensing would be very expensive and difficult. I truely don't think CLC is any of the problem.

NT80 · December 24, 2007

The contract with Advanced-online started just prior to the 2005 season as I remember. I have no idea how long the contract is etc. Most all of the major schools use CLC. Self licensing would be very expensive and difficult. I truely don't think CLC is any of the problem.

It all sounds much too complicated just to get some NT caps and shirts into local stores. Whatever NT is doing is NOT working to supply the common fan. Meanwhile, Idaho and Akron have items for sale in our local malls. <_<