Take a glance in any major sporting catalog like Eastbay or take a walk through Champs or Finish Line. One thing stands as noticeable: no UB athletic gear in sight. That will change come summer as another wave of Buffalo support will be sweeping across the campus.
As of June 1, students, alumni, parents and fans will be allowed to purchase athletic jerseys via the UB Athletics web store that can be found at www.buffalobulls.com.
"We are creating a web store which is a joint partnership between athletics and alumni relations," said Andrew Wilcox, director of ticket sales and special events. "Our target launch date for that is going to be June 1 and with that we already have in the works is the development of warm up jerseys and prototype jersey."
With the success of the men's basketball team and women's soccer team this year, one might think that successful sports have finally influenced this decision. According to Paul Vecchio, assistant athletics director for communications, the success of the sports has helped. But the idea of selling jerseys has been in the minds of UB's higher ups for quite some time now.
"I think that has definitely helped, its helped in so many areas," said Vecchio. "I think it has grown more as basketball went through what they did this year and I think that people who have gone to other places have seen jerseys being sold and they say to us 'Why can't we do that here?' so it's kind of been up to us to find a way to do it."
That question can finally be answered due to the help of Wilcox, Vecchio and others who together will make the sales a reality. According to Wilcox, it is still a work in progress as there has been some discussion of how to market these jerseys to the general public and make them affordable for the average college student.
"The challenge we have right now is trying to find a low cost solution for both the authentic basketball and football jerseys because on their own they are pretty expensive," said Wilcox. "So we are trying to find different ways to either modify the jerseys slightly or find other carriers that we might be able to bring the price down to an affordable price for people."
On the issue of price, there were no definite figures on how much the jerseys would cost, but by glancing through Eastbay, one can get the general idea of how much jerseys cost. Eastbay lists Nike NCAA basketball authentic twill and replica personalized jerseys for $69.99. Replica NCAA football jerseys are being sold through the catalog for $57.99 while personalized replica jerseys go for $64.99.
Wilcox also notes that other apparel, such as warm ups and baseball jerseys, will be sold in addition to those of football and basketball.
"It's not only going to focus on our revenue sports, we're also going to involve all our varsity sports where hopefully you'll be able to choose a piece with several options on it," said Wilcox.
While the idea of selling athletic gear is a good one, Vecchio notes that there has to be an interest in this idea for it to be successful.
"The biggest thing is to make sure that there is going to be an interest in it because obviously there is going to be a financial outlay on our part in terms of having the jerseys available. You do not want to spend thousands of dollars on apparel and only sell a small percentage of it," said Vecchio. "Because obviously it's a bad investment on our part."
That should not be a problem as other students like Tim Bouchard, a junior media study major who has voiced a positive opinion on buying jerseys.
"I'd grab a basketball jersey, but not because they are 'good now' but because I go to those games a lot more often than the football games," said Bouchard.
Vecchio also notes that the market will be especially popular with parents of athletes.
"One of the biggest markets that we know we'll be popular with is parents. We've seen already a lot of the football parents; they've come up with their own jerseys," said Vecchio.
As of right now the only place to buy this new UB athletic gear will be through their online web store but by the home UB football opener against Syracuse, jerseys and other gear should be available at UB Stadium as well in Alumni Arena during basketball events.
"It looks like we're definitely going to do sales in jerseys at football and basketball games next year," said Vecchio.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
