MELISSA BLOCK, host:
NPR's Mike Pesca is surrounded by sports merchandise of all kinds and not just because he's one of our sports correspondents. All he needs to do is take a walk on the streets of New York.
(Soundbite of street)
MIKE PESCA: I'm standing on the corner of 47th Street and Sixth Avenue, the setting for a very famous scene from the 1976 film �Marathon Man.�
(Soundbite of movie, �Marathon Man�)
Unidentified Woman: I got champagne.
PESCA: There is no woman across the street screaming at Laurence Olivier, that's true, but the one big difference for men true today are the people, what they're wearing. If you look in the background of all the shots in the movie, the men in business suits then and now still look basically the same. It's just that today, every eighth or ninth person in casual wear is sporting something sporty.
Can I ask you what hat you're wearing?
Unidentified Man #1: A Yankee hat.
Unidentified Man #2: Bruins.
Unidentified Man #3: Manhattan.
PESCA: Can I just quickly ask you what jacket you're wearing?
Mr. PETER EISMA: New York Jets.
PESCA: Do you have a lot of Jets apparel?
Mr. EISMA: I do.
PESCA: What else do you have?
Mr. EISMA: I have a hat. I have tights. I bought my wife a new Snuggie.
PESCA: The wife of Peter Eisma there has something in common with the country at large: We're enveloped in licensed sports gear and apparel.
Mr. TERRY LEFTON (Reporter, SportsBusiness Journal): Every year I say the NFL can't possibly get bigger and more pervasive in American culture and every year it does.
PESCA: Terry Lefton has been covering sports marketing and licensing since 1990 for the SportsBusiness Journal. He reports that the NFL � just one league but the biggest � sells from $3 billion to $4 billion worth of licensed goods a year. That's twice the sale of men's raincoats and much more than all the belts made in the United States. And by the way, you can buy a team licensed raincoat, belt, teddy bear.
Mr. LEFTON: Gym shorts, hoodie, barbecue, cigar humidor, trailer hitch, flask. Those are all licensed products, incidentally, legitimate ones.
PESCA: You can't get all that stuff in Frank's Sporting Goods in the Bronx, but they do sell a lot of NFL jerseys.
Mr. RON STEIN (Frank's Sports Shop): The little bit what's up there is probably $50,000.
PESCA: How many jerseys are we talking about?
Mr. STEIN: I mean, if you have 250 jerseys, you know, 200 jerseys is $50,000. We have way more than that. That's just what's, you know, on display.
PESCA: Ron Stein is the grandson of the eponymous Frank Stein. When he started, there really wasn't much of a market for more than a shirt with an iron-on decal. Now he literally has more jerseys in stock than an NFL locker room. And he sells baseball hats from the majors, minors, Dominican and Puerto Rican leagues. But Stein does say that NFL hats aren't great sellers.
Mr. STEIN: We don't sell as many hats for the sake that it's not part of the uniform itself. So it's meaningless. That's how come we'll sell, obviously, if you look around in any sport, we'll sell what's actually worn between the lines.
PESCA: The NFL realizing this has reacted by making caps seem more authentic. Coaches wear them on the sidelines and perhaps more importantly, quarterbacks, as soon as they come out of the game, throw one on. Terry Lefton says the NFL is genius at using their hours of free advertising every Sunday.
Mr. LEFTON: Just another example of how well the NFL has leveraged their sideline exposure to amp up their apparel business.
PESCA: And every year, new marketers see new NFL licensing opportunities. Lefton confirms that, yes, condom manufacturers have approached the NFL about branding. And I'm sure some fans out there this week would like to get a hold of Green Bay Packer antacids or New England Patriot antidepressants.
Mike Pesca, NPR News, New York.