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The following post is sponsored by Desert Cactus. Headquartered in the Chicago area, Desert Cactus is a fast-growing e-commerce company specializing in officially licensed and custom merchandise for more than 650 colleges and universities. Claim your sample pack today from Desert Cactus!
On July 16, DePaul published a massive announcement: a men’s basketball jersey patch partnership with Desert Cactus, a Chicagoland-based company that specializes in licensed merchandise.
"We're the first in the Big East to secure a partnership, which is a point of pride for us," DePaul athletic director DeWayne Peevy told me. “This has been fun, and it’s definitely a win for DePaul.”
It isn’t every day that DePaul beats larger conference brands like UConn, St John’s and Georgetown to the punch, so the department is justifiably excited. What might be even more impressive is the speed at which everything came together. While many patch negotiations have stretched on for months, Peevy and Desert Cactus president Joe Stefani told me the entire partnership came together “in about two weeks.”
I sometimes can’t even get a credential approved in two weeks. For a massive sponsorship package, that timeline is very unusual. And given that this partnership has the potential to improve DePaul’s athletic department in deeper ways than nearly any other current jersey sponsor … that speed is even more unique.
How did both sides pull this off so quickly? It starts with staffing.
The majority of Big East schools don’t actually have a staffer just dedicated to handling licensing. But DePaul bucked the trend by hiring Lindsay Martin away from Big East peer Butler to become the department’s senior associate athletics director for merchandise and licensing back in 2021.
Stefani had worked with Martin before and considered her a friend. So the process started with a simple text message. “We couldn’t have gotten this done so quickly if those two hadn’t already had a professional relationship,” Peevy said.
Hiring Martin to focus just on licensing relationships, instead of handling a gaggle of other external relations responsibilities, has already paid off in multiple ways. “There’s a reason her office is so full of trophies." Peevy added.
“I've been so impressed with DePaul's staff, the amount of time, money and resources they've already put into this relationship,” Stefani said. “We deal with a lot of athletic departments out there, and the staff at DePaul is like no other that I've come across at all. Like amazing people, amazing work, amazing ideas. My staff has been so impressed.”
Okay, so DePaul hired a great licensing director and smart communications professionals. That’s great, but that isn’t the real reason this is an interesting partnership, right?
No doubt about it, revenue is a critical component to any of these jersey partnership deals. DePaul needs more money to pay for stuff like facility improvements, increased athlete compensation, new staffers and everything else that comes with competing at an elite level in Division I these days. The licensing fee that comes from Desert Cactus will certainly help.
But that’s also the case for the 40-plus other schools that have announced at least one jersey patch partner. What’s interesting, at least to me, is the potential for this partnership to pay dividends far beyond the initial licensing fee.
“This is not just branding; this is a testing ground for us. That's really, really important. Testing different ideas, trying new products, new packaging and new pricing. … Essentially, this is one giant focus group for us. It's been awesome." Stefani said.
Here’s a concrete example: Next week, DePaul will host the powerhouse Nebraska Cornhusker women’s volleyball team ahead of a series of matches at Wrigley Field.
Stefani told me, “I went to Lindsay, and I said, ‘I think we need to do co-branded merchandise for when Nebraska volleyball comes to play DePaul at Wintrust Arena.’ Usually a retailer will not take a chance on that in venue, but I said, ‘hey, we'll do it on consignment.’
“We'll do it for free. If it doesn't sell, I'll eat it. But I at least want to see if it's going to work or not. Let's try posters and keychains and stickers and stuff. So it's things like that that we're willing to take the risk and try it. Because if it does work, now we can take that lesson and apply it to other schools.”
The core business for Desert Cactus, after all, is figuring out what sort of licensed products will be commercially successful and then finding ways to get them into both physical retailers and across massive online platforms like Amazon. Just like how Nike might use the University of Oregon as a testing ground for whatever new wizbang technology it’s working on in the uniform and apparel space, Desert Cactus can do the same with DePaul.
“DePaul set up this five-year strategic plan this summer. And one of the initiatives was … increasing licensing revenue by 50 percent in the next five years. I want to be a resource for DePaul to achieve that goal. Like, hey, here are some suggestions. Here are some things that we're seeing that are happening at other institutions that we can start doing here at DePaul" said Stefani.
Essentially, if the partnership is successful, DePaul gets paid twice. Once via the original sponsorship fee and then again as university licensing revenue increases. And then Blue Demon fans benefit too, since they’ll be able to buy new stuff, and in more locations than before.
“It's fun to do some of these things,” Peevy said. “It gives us a chance to really be creative here, but in a way that creates revenue and grows our partnership and gives good business back to Desert Cactus for the investment they made in us.”
Beyond just cash, products and shared expertise, Stefani told me, the company also wants to hire DePaul students for paid internships to assist with graphic and product design projects. “We’ve done this before with some of our HBCU partners, like Jackson State, and the students helped create some of our best-selling products,” he said.
At the end of the day, yes, DePaul is thrilled to secure the revenue that comes with a jersey patch. And sure, it feels good to pull that off before Providence or Creighton does. But the true success of the campaign will be about more than just cashing the first check and celebrating the first press release.
“The best partnerships are the ones that can create revenue without sacrificing the meaning of being a true partner, right?” Peevy told me. “I hope this allows more real partnerships. And maybe this opens up eyes for people that want to have those types of relationships with DePaul.”
“You need to look underneath every rock. You know, sometimes you have to jump off the deep end … and try something like this. It’s going to have a lot more benefit, I think, long term,” Stefani added.
