With professional sports leagues around the world having resumed play after months-long delays and shutdowns, vendors and retailers are scrambling to balance the merchandise they’d brought in for spring with potentially reawakened consumer demand that may not match what they’ve got in stock.

Overlap
The unprecedented overlap of seasons creates a merchandise and open-to-buy logjam at time when clearance and promotional pricing has already been deployed to clear seasonal inventory.

In North America, the NBA and NHL seasons are normally long-completed, and their goods no longer in stores or particularly visible online. This year, both leagues are now staging post-season playoffs this month and next. Major League Baseball is trying to get through an abbreviated 60-game season, while the NFL remains scheduled to start its season on Sept. 10. Major League Soccer in the U.S. and European soccer leagues also have been playing some version of their seasons.

Fanatics less frantic
Licensed sports apparel giant Fanatics has kept up a steady promotional drum beat with major TV advertising, social media and advertising campaigns. In the early days of the pandemic, when no games were being played, its sites were rife with deep discounts; a visit last week to its main home page finds a more standard mix of seasonal goods with less frantic offers.

Suppliers are moving cautiously. “We are planning our inventory more carefully,” says Josh Feinstein, Executive VP for New Business and Strategic Partnerships at licensed apparel supplier Outerstuff.

Discretionary spending
“Obviously the retail landscape is a major challenge right now and discretionary spending is something we are going to have to monitor more closely than we have in the past” given widespread unemployment and salary reductions, he said.

“We aren’t sure of what the impact of all these things will have, but what we are sure of is there is pent up demand and that we will have products available for retailers and fans for when things are back.”

With the resumption there have been “pockets of demand” that have ebbed and flowed to some extent with the unpredictable nature of the pandemic, says Feinstein. And, says another licensed sports apparel supplier, given that games aren’t physically being played in every market – the NHL is playing all its games in Toronto and Edmonton, while the NBA is in a Disney bubble in Orlando – retailers aren’t necessarily carrying as deep an assortment of licensed merchandise in their stores, choosing instead to offer a broader mix online, says an executive at.

“It’s unique having all the teams and leagues converging at the same time,” says the executive. “It will be a bit of a challenge because brick and mortar retailers only have so much space on the floor.”

Licensees also are taking a hit because almost all matches around the world are being played without fans – so arena and stadium stores are shuttered.

Many MLB teams are letting fans pay for cardboard cutouts of themselves – or pets, or celebrities – to be placed in seats around the ballpark. Unfortunately, the cutouts don’t shop.