Daily Pioneer News

Members of the UW-Platteville band help kick off the opening of a team store featuring Pioneer merchandise during a celebration at Platteville’s Wal-Mart Supercenter on Oct. 25.

PLATTEVILLE - The first thing shoppers entering Platteville's Wal-Mart Supercenter now see is a small shop prominently featuring clothing and other items from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and area high schools.

"It's definitely generating excitement," said Brad Smith, manager of Platteville's Wal-Mart. "There's been a lot of buzz about it."

UWP cheerleaders and band members helped inaugurate the area at an Oct. 25 celebration. The new Team Spirit store includes an entire wall of officially licensed UWP items, including sweatshirts, T-shirts, fleece jackets, hats, coffee mugs and other orange-and-blue Pioneer merchandise.

In addition, the area features similar merchandise from high schools throughout the region as well as the Wisconsin Badgers and Green Bay Packers.

The new shop is a great way to make UW-Platteville merchandise available to an audience that extends well beyond the campus, said Joe Sheeley, university brand manager for Licensing Resource Group Inc., which manages trademark licensing for UWP and schools of all sizes around the nation.

Sheeley said he has been working to get Pioneer clothing at Wal-Mart for the last five years as part of a bigger effort to help promote the sale of school merchandise both at the campus bookstore and other locations in the community.

School officials say they are very pleased about the new source to buy school clothing.

"This is a big deal for us," said Dennis Cooley, assistant chancellor for University Advancement. "To have this section of reasonably priced UWP merchandise that is of high quality helps us reach UWP supporters 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Wal-Mart already has received plenty of positive feedback on its new Team Spirit area, Smith said, adding that it is not done at every store in the country. The local store has to go outside of its normal supply channels to obtain the merchandise.

One of Smith's assistant managers, Celeste Steiner, is heading up the Team Spirit store. She handled a similar project at a previous Wal-Mart job in Galena, Ill.

In addition to the Team Spirit store area, UWP products are also available at other locations in the store, including the men's and women's clothing areas. They also occasionally will be featured at the checkout lines.

Licensing Resource Group Inc. connected Wal-Mart with Noble Wear as the vendor for most of the licensed UWP items.

Sheeley, based in Coralville, Iowa, said that schools of all sizes now license their merchandise so they can protect the school's image, promote the brand and, if things are done correctly, make a profit. With licensed products, the school has the final say over merchandise that is allowed to use the school logos.

In addition to UWP, Licensing Resource Group Inc. represents six other Wisconsin schools. Their 150 clients include Texas A&M, Arizona State, North Carolina State, Hawaii and Iowa State.

"We want to make sure that our relationship with school licensees and retailers is a partnership where everyone benefits," Sheeley said.

For more information about the Team Spirit store, contact Cooley at (608) 342-1182 or cooleyde@uwplatt.edu.

Contact: Dennis Cooley, assistant chancellor for University Advancement, (608) 342-1182, cooleyde@uwplatt.edu. Written by: Gary Achterberg, UWP Public Relations, (608) 342-1194, achterbergg@uwplatt.edu.

Labels: merchandise, UWP