Notre Dame to Under Armour

kg01

Get-Bak! Coach
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Atlanta
ibeeballin: The reason some stores do not sell yellow jacket items is the easiest question I have had to answer. All stores, barring none, are out to make money and will sell items that customers want. However, they lose money when the items don't sell and take up space in the store where they can put other items in its place that will sell. It is not the maker of the item at fault, it is the school not winning and making the items a hot merchandize. You can paint it any way you want to, but the bottom line is that yellow jacket items do not sell as well as they did in the years when GT was a perennial winner.

When the team becomes a big winner year in and year out, all the stores will be selling GT's items and the items will fly off the shelves faster than they can restock them. Whether it is Under Amour, Nike, or Russel makes little difference when we are winning big.

The reason stores don't carry GT gear (anymore) is that it's all mediocre looking stuff. People don't buy gear (for the most part) due to fan allegiances. It's fashion. RA makes utilitarian, functional, blue-and-yellow Tech gear which will never be popular. Us winning would help some. Us having fashionable items would help more. I love Tech but I'm not wearing some random awful blue and yellow shirt.

Again I have to add a disclaimer: yes this is a useless discussion when it comes to immediate, on-field improvements. We know, we know.
 

techman78

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
494
Location
Toccoa, Ga
Guys have said it before on other blogs but live in Wadley Ga which is fifty five miles or so from Augusta ,110 miles from Savannah and 90 or so miles from Macon......if you want tech gear you have to go to Sport Authority or some large sport outlet for tech gear and then..........you have little to choose from.Now if you are a puppy lover you are in Heaven anywhere you go from Wall mart to K Mart with all kinds of gear ,jerseys ,hats,caps ,coats etc but not a tech product in the store.We havae had so many chicken awful outfits for our players it makes you wonder who is dialing them up for Saturday.When you mess with tradition you lose something from your whole program.Ga Southern still rides ole yellar school bus to the game and have not touched unis in years.People associate themselves with the Eagles but in rural georgie its a puppy world and if we dont win big or start promoting our wares NOBODY will remember who Tech was or is......Now if you are inside fifty miles of Atlanta you dont have this problem but folks in the country who have followed tech for years if they want tech gear .......they have to travel.
I feel your pain Mack. I live in Toccoa, right on the Ga Sc line 35 miles from Clemson. We have a Hibbet Sports and a small store owned by a hometown Mutt homer. There is not a single thread of Tech gear in either store, maybe one type of Tech hat in Hibbets but that is it. All Mutt, and Clemson stuff. Hell there is more Gamerooster stuff where I live than Tech stuff. I have to go to Buford to find any selection and there is still not a lot even there. I guess like many others have said though it all comes down to winning and pretty much winning big. We do that consistently and we may see a change in the apparel availability.
 

GTJason

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,566
ibeeballin: The reason some stores do not sell yellow jacket items is the easiest question I have had to answer. All stores, barring none, are out to make money and will sell items that customers want. However, they lose money when the items don't sell and take up space in the store where they can put other items in its place that will sell. It is not the maker of the item at fault, it is the school not winning and making the items a hot merchandize. You can paint it any way you want to, but the bottom line is that yellow jacket items do not sell as well as they did in the years when GT was a perennial winner.

When the team becomes a big winner year in and year out, all the stores will be selling GT's items and the items will fly off the shelves faster than they can restock them. Whether it is Under Amour, Nike, or Russel makes little difference when we are winning big.

I think the key is targeted marketing. I worked at a Kohls in Roswell through highschool and on and off in college (Early to mid 2000s so we weren't all that good.) Every year during the summer before school started Kohls would get in a bunch of college stuff: half of the section was UGA, about a third was GT and the rest was UF/other schools. When it came time to clearance out everything the only things left was about half of the UGA stuff, couldn't keep GT on the shelves.

I asked the manager (a GT grad) why in the world we keep getting UGA stuff in when it doesn't sell and I would hardly have time to pick up GT stuff for myself. He said Kohls looks at regional sales and not individual store sales, so on my way down to the beach before school started I stopped at a Kohls in south GA. Big surprise lot's of GT stuff on clearance (there was still a lot of UGA stuff too.)

My point here is rich suburbs = GT sales. If whoever is making GT clothing can realize this, the stuff isn't that hard to sell. FWIW, the ****'s up here near me in Maryland had some Under Armour GT items. I got a ****'s gift card for Christmas so I went to the store weeks after I saw the items (a few shirts, some hoodies, etc) and they were all gone. Follow $ - Find GT grads - sell GT gear...
 

bat_082994

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
986
Location
Athens, GA
I think the key is targeted marketing. I worked at a Kohls in Roswell through highschool and on and off in college (Early to mid 2000s so we weren't all that good.) Every year during the summer before school started Kohls would get in a bunch of college stuff: half of the section was UGA, about a third was GT and the rest was UF/other schools. When it came time to clearance out everything the only things left was about half of the UGA stuff, couldn't keep GT on the shelves.

I asked the manager (a GT grad) why in the world we keep getting UGA stuff in when it doesn't sell and I would hardly have time to pick up GT stuff for myself. He said Kohls looks at regional sales and not individual store sales, so on my way down to the beach before school started I stopped at a Kohls in south GA. Big surprise lot's of GT stuff on clearance (there was still a lot of UGA stuff too.)

My point here is rich suburbs = GT sales. If whoever is making GT clothing can realize this, the stuff isn't that hard to sell. FWIW, the ****'s up here near me in Maryland had some Under Armour GT items. I got a ****'s gift card for Christmas so I went to the store weeks after I saw the items (a few shirts, some hoodies, etc) and they were all gone. Follow $ - Find GT grads - sell GT gear...
I wish the Dicks here carried GT stuff, but its in the cesspool so I'm not surprised
 

Mack

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,361
Mack, you are correct about the availability of GT gear. What's even worse, if you go into the Russell outlet center in Alexander City, AL (not too far from the GA line and where one of their largest plants was located for years before a lot of the manufacturing went overseas), they have an entire section of the store dedicated to collegiate athletic wear. There's not a single item in the store with the GT logo on it. It's almost all AU, Alabama, and other SEC schools, none of which are listed on the Russell Athletic site for collegiate sponsorships.
[Yep its bad when you go to Augusta and see more Clemson and Carolina gear than Tech.Still see no jerseys etc but hey as ugly as they are dont blame folks for not putting them in store
 

Mack

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,361
I feel your pain Mack. I live in Toccoa, right on the Ga Sc line 35 miles from Clemson. We have a Hibbet Sports and a small store owned by a hometown Mutt homer. There is not a single thread of Tech gear in either store, maybe one type of Tech hat in Hibbets but that is it. All Mutt, and Clemson stuff. Hell there is more Gamerooster stuff where I live than Tech stuff. I have to go to Buford to find any selection and there is still not a lot even there. I guess like many others have said though it all comes down to winning and pretty much winning big. We do that consistently and we may see a change in the apparel availability.
I can remember a number 15 white tech jersey (Marvin Tebbets) was given to me by a friend in Atlanta.I wore the thing out...practiced in it,wore it to school etc but then I guess Tech needed no PR.Now the only thing I have seen that gave me false hope of getting face time in store with georgie was when the bb team played in final four etc..kids bought bb jerseys and hats etc and they were on the shelves...guess we have to win to get our points across on gear and uniforms.
 

Mack

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,361
The reason stores don't carry GT gear (anymore) is that it's all mediocre looking stuff. People don't buy gear (for the most part) due to fan allegiances. It's fashion. RA makes utilitarian, functional, blue-and-yellow Tech gear which will never be popular. Us winning would help some. Us having fashionable items would help more. I love Tech but I'm not wearing some random awful blue and yellow shirt.

Again I have to add a disclaimer: yes this is a useless discussion when it comes to immediate, on-field improvements. We know, we know.
Yeah it seems PJ has no shirt to wear on sidelines but blue.............GOL and even Chan wore gold or white.......this aint ga southen !
 

techman78

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
494
Location
Toccoa, Ga
I can remember a number 15 white tech jersey (Marvin Tebbets) was given to me by a friend in Atlanta.I wore the thing out...practiced in it,wore it to school etc but then I guess Tech needed no PR.Now the only thing I have seen that gave me false hope of getting face time in store with georgie was when the bb team played in final four etc..kids bought bb jerseys and hats etc and they were on the shelves...guess we have to win to get our points across on gear and uniforms.
I can remember my first Tech jersey as well. It was a black #33. I got it for Christmas in 1989 then I wore it to my first Tech game a week later in Orlando...we all know what happened that day. I was the ripe old age of 11 at that point. Still to this day cant remember who number 33 was on that team though!!
 

Mack

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,361
Maybe he does it for visibility reasons...
Have no clue but once we did wear a blue jersey and evidently its not a favorite with Paul.I thought school colors was old gold and white but dont see much of that around the field today with the jerseys etc we wear.
 

decatur jacket

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
119
Location
Decatur, GA
Have no clue but once we did wear a blue jersey and evidently its not a favorite with Paul.I thought school colors was old gold and white but dont see much of that around the field today with the jerseys etc we wear.

Yes. Clearly not enough White and Gold...
david-sims-georgia-tech-2013.png

You may not like the style of the uniforms, but to say you, "dont see much of that around the field today with the jerseys etc we wear," is nuts.
 

TheSilasSonRising

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,729
The reason stores don't carry GT gear (anymore) is that it's all mediocre looking stuff. People don't buy gear (for the most part) due to fan allegiances. It's fashion. RA makes utilitarian, functional, blue-and-yellow Tech gear which will never be popular. Us winning would help some. Us having fashionable items would help more. I love Tech but I'm not wearing some random awful blue and yellow shirt.

Again I have to add a disclaimer: yes this is a useless discussion when it comes to immediate, on-field improvements. We know, we know.

TOTALLY disagree. It is about winning first.
 

TheSilasSonRising

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,729
Yeah it seems PJ has no shirt to wear on sidelines but blue.............GOL and even Chan wore gold or white.......this aint ga southen !

I believe he, and other coaches, do that as a means to not blend into the sideline. To stand out from the players for signaling plays, etc.

The days of coaches wearing suits is gone.

And we wore White shirts EVERY game this year.

I wish we could come up with something unique, yet traditional looking. I would in no way mind getting away from a uni scheme that averaged 7.2 wins per year and took us out of the SEC, which about killed us and to this day hurts us greatly.
 

Lexjacket

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
659
Location
Kennesaw
[Yep its bad when you go to Augusta and see more Clemson and Carolina gear than Tech.Still see no jerseys etc but hey as ugly as they are dont blame folks for not putting them in store

Mack I have been trying for two years to get though to the GT licensing office to get them to loosen up on their license grants. One company in particular is an on-line company called PrepSportswear.com. They specialize in school gear that can be customized and the clothing products are excellent quality that last a long time. They even have a site where you can build your own team.....

http://www.prepsportswear.com/Channel/ManageTeam

They do high schools, Military, Colleges and many more. Here are some of the apparel items I've designed myself .....
http://www.prepsportswear.com/team/...List.aspx?category=32&schoolid=2901338&page=0

Wake Forest uses them....

http://www.prepsportswear.com/colle...n-Deacons-Winston-Salem.aspx?schoolid=2506281

The licensing office will not give them a license - they are the problem!

Here is what they've done that does not require GT's permission.....

http://www.prepsportswear.com/vinta...gia-Tech-Golden-Tornado.aspx?schoolid=2858214

http://www.prepsportswear.com/vinta...ProductList.aspx?category=32&schoolid=2858213
 
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Mack

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,361
Yes. Clearly not enough White and Gold...
david-sims-georgia-tech-2013.png

You may not like the style of the uniforms, but to say you, "dont see much of that around the field today with the jerseys etc we wear," is nuts.
Naw dude dont see he Coaches wear white and gold,Sorry should have been clearer but of course when you are Nuts you do make mistakes...But even as nuts as I am.......this is not old gold my friend...its pee yellow.
 

Mack

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,361
I believe he, and other coaches, do that as a means to not blend into the sideline. To stand out from the players for signaling plays, etc.

The days of coaches wearing suits is gone.

And we wore White shirts EVERY game this year.

I wish we could come up with something unique, yet traditional looking. I would in no way mind getting away from a uni scheme that averaged 7.2 wins per year and took us out of the SEC, which about killed us and to this day hurts us greatly.
Whoa dude you forget the 7.2 wins was established during a 10 game season.....bet you would like to win seventy percent every year.Not happy with leaving SEC either but look at the record as independent under Dodd...seven wins plus was not bad.OF course the day of suits on the sidelines is over and maybe the blue is for signalling but you can pick out gold without too much trouble either.My point is tech is or was old gold and white not blue even though we did change to blue at home under Ross and the NCAA rules.I like traditional colors and unis not the WFL things we wear now.
 
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