On campus

Collegiate licensing is massive business at retail, with nationally popular schools like Michigan, Texas and Notre Dame racking up huge dollars for themselves, as well as manufacturers and retailers. This business extends beyond the campus to a variety of retail outlets, including the toy segment.

In its embryonic days of the early '80s, t-shirts and hats dominated the college licensing landscape. Today, with retail sales at about $2.8 billion, you name it and you can find that college-licensed product—key chains, bottle openers, mugs—as the selection is pretty exhausting.

What retailers have is the opportunity to cash-in on national as well as local schools. “The first thing I would tell retailers is to go with in-state schools,” says Dave Kirkpatrick, vice president, non-apparel marketing for the Collegiate Licensing Company. “Second, I would tell them to carry the national schools—North Carolina, Michigan, Florida, Notre Dame—they have big alumni bases and are all around the country.”

The Atlanta-based Collegiate Licensing Company is a licensing representative that manages more than 200 colleges, universities, bowl games, athletic conferences, The Heisman Trophy and the NCAA events in its stable.

Video games are the top seller in licensed products, with EA Sports, Redwood City, Calif., selling 1.8 million units of its exclusive NCAA College Football property last year. Coming soon, EA will have a co-exclusive with 2K Games, New York, for a college hoops game, and will have an exclusive with the first NCAA college baseball video game.

Other toy store products showing consistent strength are plush mascots, like little football or basketball players; helmets of all sizes; sporting goods; and, surprisingly, infant and toddler items.

According to Alex Babbidge, president of Mascotopia, New Haven, Conn., whose flagship product is the Mascot Mobile ($44.95), a mobile that plays a school's fight song and has revolving plush mascots hanging from its arms, parents bonding with their children through their university is a solid market.

“The product is about sharing your alma mater with your kids,” says Babbidge. “I thought about it when I was singing my school's fight song while putting my son to bed. It is parent-child sharing time.”

The key to the product, says Babbidge, is to have the mobile on display where people can see it all the time. “With that, it is an easy and compelling sell. You have to keep it in front of people all year round.”

Babbidge says that with every opening order Mascotopia includes a free Mascot Mobile for the retailer to open and keep on display. Mascotopia currently has the license for 63 colleges and universities.

And this goes further. What makes a big-time football or basketball school graduate happier than building a love of that school in their youngsters?

Products abound, such as the Franklin Sports', Stoughton, Mass., offering of authentic-looking dress-up college outfits, as well as licensed coolers, footballs, basketballs and more. These are just a sampling of the world of collegiate licensing. For more information on your local schools, go to: www.clc.com.

According to the CLC as of close of fiscal year ended July 26, 2005:

• This marks the fifth consecutive year the University of North Carolina has ranked number one in the CLC member institution fiscal year-end rankings in licensed product sales.
• T-shirts were the top selling product for the University of North Carolina during the fiscal year.
• Nike USA has occupied the top spot among collegiate apparel licensees since 1999.
• EA Sports has maintained its No. 1 status in non-apparel products since third-quarter 2003.
• Top 25 local licensees: Hands On Originals, Lexington, Ky.; U-Name It, Austin, Texas; Lloyd Sales, North Little Rock, Ark.; Houndstooth Clothing Co., Fayettville, Ark.; Great Plains Coca-Cola Bottling, Oklahoma City, Okla.

To submit licensing information please contact: thomas.sosnowski@reedbusiness.com or (646) 746-6791.