For your Cowboys gear

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Aug 1, 2002

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- J.C. Penney will become the official retailer of Dallas Cowboys apparel in Texas and four adjoining states. The states covered in the three-year deal -- Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma -- account for more than half of Cowboys' apparel sold in the United States. Penney has 136 department stores in the region. The apparel will be presented in special "Cowboys Shops" and will include pants, jerseys, T-shirts and jackets. Merchandise will be available Aug. 1.

The companies promised an aggressive print and broadcast advertising campaign for the shops. Penney also said it would start a sweepstakes competition tied to Emmitt Smith's pursuit of the NFL career record for rushing yardage.

The Cowboys are the only one of the NFL's 32 teams handling their own merchandising.

Memories...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Today is the 213th day of 2002. There are 152 days left in the year. Here are some business and legal highlights from this date in history:

In 1790, the first United States census was completed, showing a population of nearly 4 million people.

In 1873, inventor Andrew S. Hallidie successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the city of San Francisco.

In 1876, Colorado was admitted as the 38th state.

In 1936, the Olympic games opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.

In 1944, an uprising broke out in Warsaw, Poland, against Nazi occupation, a revolt that lasted two months before collapsing.

In 1946, President Truman signed the Fulbright Program into law, establishing the scholarships named for Sen. William J. Fulbright.

In 1946, the Atomic Energy Commission was established.

In 1957, the United States and Canada reached agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

In 1975, a 35-nation summit in Helsinki, Finland, concluded with the signing of an accord dealing with European security, human rights and East-West contacts.

In 1981, the rock music video channel MTV made its debut.

Putting their money where their mouth is

WATERVILLE, Maine (AP) -- The Made in the USA Foundation spent years urging Americans to buy domestic goods as thousands of manufacturing jobs were exported overseas. Today it's trying a new tactic. The nonprofit organization is leading an investment group to buy C.F. Hathaway, the nation's last major manufacturer of domestically-sewn men's dress shirts.

"We've done everything we can for the past 13 years to promote American goods," said Joel Joseph, chairman of the Made in the USA Foundation. "But if you can't find American goods, you can't buy them."

Hathaway, recognized for its man with an eye patch logo, set the standard for men's dress shirts back in the 1950s and `60s. Back then, button-down shirts were sewn in factories like the 19th century brick building Hathaway occupies along the Kennebec River. Times changed, though, and most shirts sold in the United States are now imported from countries where labor is cheaper and there are fewer regulations. U.S. shirtmakers like Arrow and Van Heusen have moved their operations overseas.

"Offshore pressure is a huge competitive problem for us," said Donald Sappington, chief executive officer of the 165-year-old Hathaway, the nation's oldest shirtmaker. "There is no domestic competition."

Hathaway has survived, but just barely. The company's pending sale, its third in six years, was negotiated after its current owner, Connecticut-based Windsong Allegiance Group, announced plans to close the factory this summer. Joseph read a newspaper article about Hathaway's imminent shutdown and saw a chance to save 300 U.S. manufacturing jobs.

"I was shocked by it," he said from his office in Bethesda, Md. "I knew it was an efficient plant, and it was a plant with a good reputation that should be saved. And so I called immediately."

Joseph has previously orchestrated deals to save other U.S. manufacturers, but the Hathaway buy will be the foundation's first direct purchase of a company. More deals to preserve American manufacturing jobs will follow if Hathaway proves to be a good investment, Joseph said. He insists U.S. shirt manufacturing is still viable if owners are willing to accept lower profit margins than they'd have overseas.

Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a retail consulting firm in New York, predicted it will be a struggle. "Ninety percent of the people who have tried this have collapsed," he said. "There are bodies littered everywhere." The key will be whether Hathaway can design distinctive shirts and then sell them for a premium market, the same way a handful of U.S. shoe makers have managed to survive, Davidowitz said.

Gambling with profits

NEW YORK (AP) -- They're back, those offers of free shipping and deep discounts that wooed shoppers to the Web during the dot-com boom. While it's sure good news for consumers, it's a risky move for e-retailers that just started getting their businesses on a profitable track. Gimmicks destroyed dot-coms in the past, and now success is hinged on whether cybershops can use the deals to convince shoppers to buy more pricey goods and then return to the online store again and again.