Drew
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How Georgia’s fabulous football season boosted its profile...
Georgia broadcasting personality Chuck Dowdle was walking through a parking lot at a golf club in Maine last summer when he noticed a rather famous face throwing some clubs into the trunk of a black Escalade.
“Mr. President?” Dowdle said.
George W. Bush turned, walked away from his Secret Service protection and extended his hand to Dowdle — who happened to be wearing a Georgia golf shirt. The 43rd president of the United States pointed at the logo.
“Go Dawgs!” Bush said, according to Dowdle. “I follow the Dawgs. I’m a Big 12 guy. But I follow the Dawgs.”
The national awareness of Georgia football was already fairly strong. Then came last season. The win at Notre Dame. The SEC championship. The Rose Bowl. The national championship game. Not to mention an unofficial recruiting national championship.
As UGA associate athletic director for marketing Alan Thomas, who has been at the school for more than 15 years, put it: “Certainly the profile has been lifted.”
That’s reflected in ways both anecdotal and financial.
Georgia’s athletic department can track the sales that come from its online store. And it shows just how much of a difference there is between an eight-win season and a run to the national championship game.
There was an 89 percent increase in all licensed product sales from the end of 2016 to the end of 2017. That accounted for about $3 million in sales for the latter half of 2017.
The spike was even greater down the stretch of last season: Because of the holidays coinciding with football season, November and December are the peak sales period anyway, but as Georgia was winning the SEC championship and going to the College Football Playoff, the spike was astounding: November saw a 74 percent improvement over the previous year, and December saw a 316 percent increase.
“We saw a lot of growth, without a doubt,” Thomas said.
The heartbreaking loss to Alabama didn’t stop momentum: The first three months of 2018 saw a 322 percent improvement over the same period last year. And visits to the school’s online store are up 294 percent.
Just insane what a good football season can do for apparel sales/fan spirit. We talk a lot on here about how football (and sports in general) are a marketing tool for universities and in my opinion, this type of data shows that to be true.
Georgia broadcasting personality Chuck Dowdle was walking through a parking lot at a golf club in Maine last summer when he noticed a rather famous face throwing some clubs into the trunk of a black Escalade.
“Mr. President?” Dowdle said.
George W. Bush turned, walked away from his Secret Service protection and extended his hand to Dowdle — who happened to be wearing a Georgia golf shirt. The 43rd president of the United States pointed at the logo.
“Go Dawgs!” Bush said, according to Dowdle. “I follow the Dawgs. I’m a Big 12 guy. But I follow the Dawgs.”
The national awareness of Georgia football was already fairly strong. Then came last season. The win at Notre Dame. The SEC championship. The Rose Bowl. The national championship game. Not to mention an unofficial recruiting national championship.
As UGA associate athletic director for marketing Alan Thomas, who has been at the school for more than 15 years, put it: “Certainly the profile has been lifted.”
That’s reflected in ways both anecdotal and financial.
Georgia’s athletic department can track the sales that come from its online store. And it shows just how much of a difference there is between an eight-win season and a run to the national championship game.
There was an 89 percent increase in all licensed product sales from the end of 2016 to the end of 2017. That accounted for about $3 million in sales for the latter half of 2017.
The spike was even greater down the stretch of last season: Because of the holidays coinciding with football season, November and December are the peak sales period anyway, but as Georgia was winning the SEC championship and going to the College Football Playoff, the spike was astounding: November saw a 74 percent improvement over the previous year, and December saw a 316 percent increase.
“We saw a lot of growth, without a doubt,” Thomas said.
The heartbreaking loss to Alabama didn’t stop momentum: The first three months of 2018 saw a 322 percent improvement over the same period last year. And visits to the school’s online store are up 294 percent.
Just insane what a good football season can do for apparel sales/fan spirit. We talk a lot on here about how football (and sports in general) are a marketing tool for universities and in my opinion, this type of data shows that to be true.
