by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
It has been time to move both for the temporary Super Bowl vendors stationed along Bay Street and for their merchandise.
With the game over and most of the estimated 150,000 out-of-town visitors either gone already or packing their bags, Bay Street represented a buyer’s market for hats, T-shirts, and other bric-a-brac stamped with the logo of the National Football League.
The vendors interviewed all expected to move most of their inventory out the doors of their temporary Bay Street locations. But by Tuesday afternoon, most had an employee or two piling leftovers into boxes.
Most agreed that sales were good but a little disappointing. Poor weather and a surge of late-coming competition were the reasons most often cited for sales that didn’t meet expectations.
“We did very well obviously,” said Lee Kil, a manager at Focus Sports. “But compared to Houston last year the numbers aren’t going to be quite as good. We had a little more foot traffic last year and a lot less competition.”
As Kil spoke, about a dozen last-minute bargain hunters were sorting through the remains of the store’s merchandise. Kil occasionally shouted “three for one” to passers by, but even that hefty discount wasn’t enough for some.
“Not four-for-one?” responded one man. “Not yet,” said Kil with a smile. The man continued east down Bay Street toward the half-dozen shops hawking similar merchandise.
The vendors on Bay Street basically broke down into two groups: Those that got in early and those that came at the last minute. Kil’s group, a subsidiary of a Denver sports apparel chain, scouted their location between Ocean and Newnan streets six months ago.
Focus Sports signed their short-term lease last year. A necessary step, they thought, to secure a location along Bay Street, the location for the largest street party in the City.
That turned out not to be the case as several vendors found open spots along the street a week prior to the Super Bowl. Major T, a store two doors down from Focus Sports, found its spot that way. Vendor John Smith, the owner of Sports Mania, said he signed his lease to move into the Suddath Building’s ground floor just nine days before kickoff.
The late surge of competition kept prices low, watered down sales and led to early discounting, said Kil. Although the merchandise was hardly a bargain in the week leading up to the game — $35 for a ball cap, $29 for a plastic sheath to display your ticket — the aggressive discounting after the game was largely a result of the glut of stores.
“Last year we stayed full price until we packed up and left,” said Kil. “Here our neighbors dropped their price on Monday, so we basically had no choice but to do the same thing.”
His neighbor was Benny Malone, owner of Major T, who takes his Arizona merchandise shop on the road for major sporting events like the Super Bowl, Final Four and Olympics. Malone’s son B.J. said they were happily surprised to find a Bay Street location so late in the game. Sales started out slow in the drizzly early-week weather. But once the sun came out and the crowds started rolling in, the cash register started jumping, he said.
“The street fair helped a lot,” he said. “From Thursday on we were packed in here.”
Once the discounting starts the profits usually come to an end. None of the vendors would discuss their profit margins — they didn’t want to tip off future competition — but all agreed that it’s tough to make money selling NFL-licensed merchandise at half or even a third of the retail price.
The Malone’s store was one of the few featuring more empty shelves than merchandise. All the vendors had similar plans for leftover merchandise. Some of it is auctioned on e-bay, some is shipped to stores in Boston, home of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. The most stubborn merchandise is donated to charity for tax write-offs.