NHL, Reebok Create Glitzy Midtown Manhattan Store
The National Hockey League and Reebok have collaborated on an apparel store in midtown Manhattan with a dazzling display of video screens and designer t-shirts where shoppers can also relax over a double mocha latte.
The NHL Powered By Reebok, as the store is billed, is intended to stop hockey fans strolling by in their tracks with enough eye candy to rival the window displays in the city’s diamond district across from the Sixth Avenue location.
It lives up to the billing, as yesterday’s press tour revealed. Next to a wall display of Reebok shoes, fans can design their own pair with an NHL team logo. Along with newly-designed high-ticket Reebok NHL jerseys are designer variations on the NHL team themes, including t-shirts and pullovers designed by Reebok for men and women.
NHL designer apparel appealing to both sexes is the cutting edge the store is attempting to create. “This is the big draw we think we can bring to NHL apparel,” said Reebok CEO Paul Harrington.
“The notion is we’re entering the retail business,” said Brian Jennings, NHL executive vice president of marketing. “The ability to have a flagship store was too tempting to pass up.”
The notion of the location itself was suggested by the NHL headquarters opening on the upper floors of the same building on October 19. The store will open on Oct. 12, with a Zamboni machine and NHL-decorated buses traversing Sixth Avenue to trumpet the event.
The 6,700-square foot corner store of glass windows would be hard to miss without the hoopla. A central chandelier constructed of hockey sticks displays eight large flat-screen TVs that will carry live games daily. A 5.5-foot-by-16 video screen dominates the entrance, with an NHL-branded motorcycle designed by Orange County Choppers in the front window. Oversized images of NHL stars – to be changed periodically – adorn the walls.
Young fans can play NHL video games on flat-screen displays with Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, or they can scroll graffiti in an ice wall set behind a display of hockey skates. (They can also buy the video games.) NHL replica jerseys, the crown jewel of league merchandising, are also upfront in vivid color, ready to be customized – one of the location’s draws.
“While you’re enjoying your cappuccino, you can have your jersey customized,” said Jennings.
The cappuccino is in the back, at a Starbucks also equipped with TV screens. In mid-store, an XM radio studio is situated on the mezzanine level. The “NHL Live” show will broadcast live from the store location daily between noon and 2 p.m.
Fans can also buy Upper Deck Trading Cards, Fathead Posters, InGlasCo Pucks and other NHL merchandise.
The location is one large marketing mecca for the NHL, which must have taken a page from the NBA playbook and its Cadillac retail location several blocks away on Fifth Avenue.
