Rose Bowl is big business, ‘both legitimate and illegitimate’

IOWA CITY — The hottest item in town right now is Iowa gear for the Rose Bowl-bound Hawkeyes, and everyone knows it — including vendors, or wannabes, across the country in Pasadena.

Dale Arens, director of University of Iowa licensing, has been warned by his counterparts at other universities that the Rose Bowl can be ripe for rip-offs. Scammers looking to take advantage of hype around 'the granddaddy of them all' create knock-off versions of official Rose Bowl paraphernalia and peddle the goods outside the game and along the Rose Parade route.

With the University of Iowa competing in this year's oldest bowl game for the first time in a quarter century, Arens is expecting some misuse of the Hawkeye brand in the illegal peddling. That's why he'll be on site with law enforcement on game day to crack down on possible perpetrators.

'In talking to some of my colleagues from sister institutions around the country who have been to the Rose Bowl, they tell me it's quite an operation — they find a lot of stuff,' Arens told The Gazette. 'Hopefully we don't find things, but we'd be naive not to look and think that we won't.'

Success is big business, he said, 'both legitimate and illegitimate.'

Weeks before the Hawkeyes knew they'd be competing in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, the UI Athletics Department was busy approving products and artwork on products for various scenarios — including a win against Michigan State in the Big 10 Championship.

Once the Rose Bowl invite came, Arens said, UI already had approved a slate of products — for which it will receive royalties — and a flurry of additional inquiries began pouring in. The university has been approving those requests and passing them along to Rose Bowl licensing officials for approval.

Any products OK'd by UI and the Rose Bowl — and Stanford University, should sellers want to include the Hawkeyes' opponent on their gear — are verified for quality and include a holographic label to prove authenticity.

Revenue from the sale of those products are split between the Rose Bowl and the universities.

'If you are buying something through a legitimate retailer, whether online or in a store, there is a label that appears that identifies it as legitimate,' Arens said. 'If it's someone standing on a street corner holding up a T-shirt from a gym bag, it's probably not licensed.'

That's what Arens, along with law enforcement and licensing officials with Stanford and the Rose Bowl, will be looking for in Pasadena on game day.

'We will recognize people we have relationships with,' he said.

Although Arens will get to break from his patrols during the game itself, he'll begin his efforts to crack down on perpetrators around the parade and the stadium at 5 a.m. Jan. 1.

'Intellectual property theft is no different than stealing a purse,' he said. 'It's property that belongs to someone else. And there are laws that forbid that.'

UI makes good money off royalties from sales involving its brand, and Arens said this year is shaping up to be a good one — although it's too soon to tell how big of an impact the Rose Bowl will have on revenue.

Most of the sales probably will not be reported until sometime between January and March, with the deadline coming in March. And although he's expecting to see a bump in sales, Arens said, some of it will be a 'transfer of dollars,' so to speak.

'You see, there is this little thing coming up here in a week called Christmas,' he said.

About this time of year, shoppers with Hawkeye fans in their lives buy Hawkeye gear. This year, instead of buying a generic Iowa shirt, they might buy Rose Bowl apparel.

'In some cases, it's just people buying one thing over the other,' Arens said.

But, he said, a team's success certainly can impact the amount of products sold, and sales through the fall increased in conjunction with Hawkeye wins.

'We are running ahead,' he said. 'We have been tracking some nice modest gains.'