With Selection Sunday on March 16, the buzz around the NCAA college basketball tournament, or March Madness, is nearing a climax. Some brands are expecting the tournament to bring some cheer—not just for sports fans, but also lead to a spike in sales of sports merchandise.
Consumers haven’t exactly been beating a path to retailers’ doors, with retail sales reporting their steepest decline in nearly two years in January. However, March Madness could potentially be a bright spot for some, because the tournament spans weeks, creating sustained consumer engagement and spending opportunities throughout March and early April.
Two Shopify sellers told Retail Brew that sales of items in their sports lineup—T-shirts and other related gear—are already trending up compared to the same time last year. Top brand executives said Shopify tools like Shopify Flow and Shopify Collective help deliver inventory at scale to both wholesale clients and regular shoppers across platforms. Shopify ensures sellers’ websites remain operational during these high-traffic sales periods while also managing affiliate payouts.
“It’s a fun time of the year, because I would say unlike any other sport, March Madness draws people in that aren’t traditional basketball fans,” Megan Smalley, founder of apparel and accessories brand Scarlet & Gold, told Retail Brew. “As a manufacturer and a retailer in this space, this is a prime time every single year for us to capitalize on sales.”
Based in Auburn, Alabama—yes, where Auburn University is—Smalley said that sales at her Shopify store are running 74.2% higher than March 2024. This year, Smalley has signed not one but two deals with players from the Auburn Tigers: Johni Broome and Dylan Cardwell.
For Steven Farag, CEO of The NIL Store, March Madness is “like Christmas.” “All eyes are on the players. There’s only 12 or 13 of them per team. Everyone’s taking off work to watch games. People are filling out their brackets, so it’s one of the biggest stimulants in the sports economy space,” Farag told Retail Brew. Last season, the NIL store saw a 61% increase in revenue between March 1 and April 10 (the end of the tournament) compared to the previous 42-day period.
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“For these athletes, this is the first time they’re on stage in their life, and the whole world is backing them. And so for us, our company thrives on special moments and celebrates them with apparel,” Farag added. “It is our favorite time of the year, it is when we do the best, and it’s also when we make the athletes the most amount of money because they’re on stage and they deserve it.”
Social selling, specifically Instagram, Facebook, and X is “critical” to The NIL Store because that’s where the T-shirt brand collaborates with athletes to tag its products, Each school gets its own Shopify store, and Farag said the company “built our own custom front end on Hydrogen with Shopify Plus, and brought it all together.”
“When it comes to March Madness, people want Auburn basketball, Tennessee basketball, Alabama basketball—those sports-specific products,” Smalley added. For Scarlet & Gold, the way to spell success in March Madness relies on pairing merchandise with mascot illustrations. “When you pair it with a beloved mascot illustration playing basketball, it’s a win-win,” she added.
For Smalley, standing out in the marketplace in peak moments of culture begins with creating something unique. “I want to create merch for women and kids. We do sell men’s stuff too, but our target demographic is women and kids, because when you walk into a campus bookstore, those are the holes in the product space,” she added.
Ultimately, Smalley said offline sales reach their highest points around this time, because the tournament creates a halo effect for businesses located near host cities, with hotels, restaurants, and local retailers benefiting from the influx of visitors. “I would say Auburn sales are much stronger online, because that’s our hometown school,” she said. “It is our biggest fan base.”
“For every other school for us, offline sales are typically stronger than online sales because we’re selling to retailers in that town, so people can grab it on their way to the game, and there’s a lot of value in that,” Smalley said.