The Lakeland Union High School board of education will be asked to approve a licensing agreement with Kollege Town Sports (KTS) to exclusively supply Under Armour (UA) apparel, footwear and accessories for T-Birds athletic teams and co-curricular organizations.
Activities/Athletic Director Don Scharbarth presented the proposal Thursday, Dec. 8 to the board’s finance committee.
“About a month ago we were contacted by a company called Kollege Town just to gauge our interest in possibly signing a contract with them and basically branding our school as a Kollege town slash Under Armour school,” he said.
KTS has struck a number of licensing agreements with colleges and universities. Now, they are reaching out to high schools, especially those with high levels of participation in athletics and co-curricular groups. “This is something that is fairly new in our state for our high schools,” Scharbarth said. “There is a bunch that have signed on with Kollege Town already. We are the only school in northern Wisconsin that they were even interested in. They are interested in us because of the large number of teams and clubs and activities that we have.”
The school currently fields 25 varsity sport programs and has more than 30 clubs and activities for students. According to the proposed contract, UA would become the exclusive brand used by Lakeland sports and co-curricular groups. KTS would give large discounts on retail pricing on signature brand uniforms, footwear and apparel. KTS would set up a website for ordering and link it to the school website. The school would receive a 5 percent rebate back on all purchases over five years. Depending on the amount of merchandize purchased, Lakeland could receive upwards of $40,000 in “retail dollars” over five years to be used in UA team catalog merchandize and FanaKTive products. Based on $100,000 in sales each year, it would generate $7,000 in retail dollars for each of those three years. The retail dollars would jump to $9,500 in each of year four and five, again with a minimum of $100,000 in sales.
Scharbarth said later that the goal of $100,000 in product sales annually “would be realistic.” There are two to three levels (junior varsity, etc.) within most of those 25 varsity teams, he said. Most purchase uniforms, sweatshirts, caps and other apparel each year. Seven of the varsity teams have school funding each year for uniforms. Booster clubs would be invited to join in the program, he said, and their purchases would count toward earning retail dollars. Even if the $100,000 in sales wasn’t reached, he believes that KTS would prorate the rebates and retail dollars. KTS would reward the school for any conference championship, which would earn $250 retail dollars, while a state qualifier would earn $500 and a state championship $1,000. Scharbarth said if the agreement were struck by December, they would start outfitting the 2017 spring teams. Finance chairperson Barry Seidel said the final decision would rest with the school board. The committee wants input from the Student Council, which currently runs a “school store” selling apparel. The motion to forward the matter to the full board also calls for confirmation that the school can cancel the contract at any time or set it for a shorter term. Scharbarth said he and Student Council advisors plan to meet with the KTS sales representative next week to discuss the contract terms and how Student Council can still be involved with the student store.
