|
Dallas Cowboys break ground on merchandise hub
DFW AIRPORT, Jul 01, 2009 (Fort Worth Star-Telegram - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Hard economic times can't keep the Dallas Cowboys business machine down.
To wrap up a month in which the franchise christened the $1.15 billion stadium in Arlington, on Tuesday it broke ground on a 400,000-square-foot warehouse, production and headquarters facility for Dallas Cowboys Merchandising, Dallas Cowboys Pro Shops and Blue Star Graphics & Design.
Bulldozers have already flattened the massive plot of dirt near D/FW Airport, stakes are in the ground and soon construction activity will commence with a short time table. The Cowboys plan to move into the new building by Jan. 1, 2010 and hope to be up to full speed by March 15.
Dallas-based developer Bandera Ventures, which previously built the Cowboys' 103,845-square-foot merchandising facility nearby, will handle this latest one-of-a-kind facility in the NFL. The new facility represents a consolidation and expansion of their existing Cowboys operations.
How quickly has the Cowboys' merchandise operation grown? The franchise had about 60 employees in merchandising in 2001, which included 34 stores at that time across Texas. Today there are 400 employees.
Jerry Jones Jr., Cowboys executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer, is at the forefront of it all.
What will take place at the new facility?
Obviously with the proximity of DFW a lot of it [merchandise] will be shipped in and imported from various places. And what we'll do is -- not only from almost 800 different wholesale customers that we have that are basically retailers across the country that are basically buying the merchandising -- we bring it in to here, pack it up -- for lack of a better word -- and distribute it all out. But then also with the growth of what Internet is and the growth of what our catalog business is to our 35 retail stores, those packages are developed and built right here and shipped out from this location, so there is a lot of distribution going on.
Unlike other NFL teams, you have the ability to produce your own merchandise at your current facility and will continue to do so at the new facility?
We have our own printing machines so we've invested heavily into equipment that helps you manufacture some of your merchandise. While some of it is manufactured elsewhere, some of it is manufactured here.
Such as?
The key thing is to really be able to chase the market and so if you sign somebody or on draft day you pick a player, say Felix Jones, and you want to print his jersey real quick and put it up on the Web site, well, we have blank jerseys in here and we can sit there and put 'Jones' on the back and put his number on there and have it shipped out that night. You'll have a lot of blank T-shirts and blank jerseys. Like, when we signed Terrell Owens, we were printing 'Owens' and '81' jerseys and putting them online and within hours of signing him people were buying his jersey online.
To see more of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, or to subscribe to the newspaper,
go to http://www.dfw.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email
tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax
to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave.,
Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
|
INDUSTRIES
Activate Email 
Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, January 20-22, 2010. Miami, FL.
