Baltimore retailers to capitalize during Ravens and Indianapolis

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jan 12, 2007 by Louis Llovio

On a cold afternoon in downtown Baltimore, one man is finding that commerce is the best defense against the ravages of winter.

His name is Eddie - just Eddie - and he's making his money by capitalizing on the Ravens matchup with the Indianapolis Colts, the biggest football game to hit Baltimore in years.

"Business is good, man," Eddie said. "Business is good."

Set up on a street corner across from the Inner Harbor and the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Eddie and a partner are one of a handful of vendors hawking Ravens' T-shirts, hats, ear covers and anything purple-and-black they can get their hands on.

While all the merchandise is designed to root on the Ravens, not all of it is legitimate and approved by the team. For the buyers lining up, though, where it comes from doesn't seem to matter much.

As if to illustrate how good business is, a white SUV pulls up to the curb; a man in a white dress shirt and red power tie jumps out, leaving the truck idling at the curb. He walks over to Eddie's partner.

Within minutes, the buyer has walked off with over a dozen "Beat Indy" purple t-shirts.

The T-shirt is a popular one and it's popping up everywhere. From Eddie's Baltimore corner to the Greetings & Readings store at the Hunt Valley Town Center, the shirts with a picture of Johnny Unitas on the front, his name and famous number 19 on the back, are selling like crazy.

Steve Spund, owner of the Hunt Valley greeting card and book store, said he has sold "thousands" since Saturday evening when the shirts went on sale. Eddie said he sold "at least a dozen boxes" of them.

The man behind the craze is Craig Pfeifer.

Pfeifer, who owns Maryland Screen Printers in Dundalk, said he wanted to find a way to show that "Johnny Unitas was a Baltimore football fan, not a [Indianapolis] Colts fan."

The shirts, he said, hit a nerve.

While he doesn't have exact figures, he said the presses have been running all night to keep up with the demand.

As popular as the shirts are though, Pfeifer is walking a tightrope when it comes to dealing with the behemoth that is the National Football League. The NFL has very strict licensing and marketing requirements that teams such as the Ravens, and companies producing merchandise, must adhere to.

Pfeifer's shirts seem to pass muster, according to the NFL, because he got approval from the Unitas family to use the image. A portion of the proceeds go to the Golden Arm Educational Foundation - and no official NFL emblem is used.

Calls to Unitas Management Corp. to verify the agreement weren't returned by press time.

Not everyone is so protected, since the NFL does not look kindly on non-approved or counterfeit merchandise.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that, come tomorrow, there is a very good chance the league will have investigators looking at merchandise sold by vendors outside the stadium. He said the league does not officially release what games investigators attend; however, the higher the profile of a game, the higher the likelihood that mixed in with the crowd are league investigators partnered with local police and federal agents.

Any item bearing a team name, the words "playoffs" or Super Bowl" or that incorporates the team colors, must have a tag stating it is official NFL merchandise, he said.

"If you are selling a purple-and-black 'Go Team!' shirt in California, you're okay," he said. "But if you're selling it in Baltimore, then it can be inferred that you are talking about the Ravens and that is not allowed."

Investigators work year-round trying to identify the bogus materials, which cost the league "hundreds of millions," McCarthy said.

The main problem with the merchandise, he said, is that it's of inferior quality.

"You can tell its fake just by looking at it," he said. The materials used and the quality of the embroidery are usually a dead giveaway.

If that fails, he said, the next easiest way to identify the legitimacy of a product is to look at the price. McCarthy readily admits that NFL merchandise is not inexpensive - the league earns nearly $3 billion a year from it.

"It goes back to the old saying," he said, "If something seems too good to true, it usually isn't true."

Which brings us back to Eddie.

Standing on his corner, his Ravens' cap sitting lopsided on his head, Eddie claims that all of his merchandise is legitimate.

"This stuff is real, man," he insisted. "There are plenty of guys out there selling the fake stuff, but I'm not one of them."

A cursory examination of the wares on his table, though, show that the T-shirts lack heft - McCarthy said all NFL-approved shirts are 100 percent cotton. The team logos are cracked and fading - McCarthy said all materials are guaranteed to last years and can withstand the elements and hundreds of washings.

And the tags are made of thin paper with flat one-dimensional silver tags - McCarthy said all league-sanctioned merchandise has cardboard tags with a three-dimensional holographic symbol with the image of the NFL shield imprinted on them.