Tampabay: Both on field and off, Bucs have the goods

[Times photo: Lara Cerri]
Mike Tumbleson helps his daughter Kacie, 10, pick out a Buccaneers jersey Wednesday at Buccaneer Heaven in Tampa. Hard-hitting safety John Lynch wears No. 47.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have put down some impressive stats in the last few weeks -- on the field and at the cash register.

The team ranked third in jersey and merchandise sales from Dec. 1 to Jan. 15 on NFLshop.com, the football league's online shop. Last year, the Bucs were ninth.

At brick-and-mortar retail outlets, Bucs gear was the seventh-biggest seller among the league's 32 teams for the first two weeks of this year, according to SportScan Info, a West Palm Beach outfit that tracks such sales.

Jeffrey Neil Fox is living the numbers.

He is president of Buccaneer Heaven in Tampa, the "largest Bucs merchandise store on the planet," as he will tell you with gusto.

At his shop on Florida Avenue on Wednesday afternoon, he's a cyclone of activity. His desk is a mess. His foot taps triple-time to the ringing of his cell phone. He's sleeping only a few hours a night. He is a man on a mission -- to sell as much as he can while the mania lasts.

"It's a hot market," he said. "I can sleep all I want when the season is over."

It hasn't always been this way. When he got into the business in 1991, the Bucs were a dismal 3-13 for the season.

"My mom would call and say, 'Why don't you get a real job?' "

He said he did more business in the first few hours he was open Wednesday than he did in his entire first year, although he did not share his figures.

Fox's store has all the basics -- jerseys, car flags and T-shirts. But it also has much more. Check out the Chucky and Bride of Chucky dolls for $49.99 each. And there are the Bucs T-shirts for dogs, the golf balls and the ladies' silky pajamas. A bobblehead doll of Bucs coach Jon Gruden will set you back $18.99.

All things Gruden also are flying out the door at Sports Fan Attic in Park Side Mall in Pinellas Park.

"Jon Gruden, he's the man," said Justin Lewis, the store's assistant manager. "He's the savior, or whatever."

The so-called Gruden visor, the white visor he wears on the sidelines, is popular, Lewis said. So is the Chucky doll, a horror film icon frozen in a scowl similar to Gruden's when a game isn't following his playbook.

The merchandise sales have been helped, of course, by the Bucs' run at postseason glory, as well as the popularity of several players.

Since December, three Bucs ranked among the 20 most popular when it came to jersey sales on NFLshop.com: defensive tackle Warren Sapp, fourth; tailback Mike Alstott, seventh; and safety John Lynch, 18th.

NFLshop.com, which includes the league's catalog business and online shop, did $26.5-million in sales last year. It is a good indicator of fan interest, said Dan Masonson, although only 5 percent of NFL jersey sales are made through it. The league's 32 teams share equally the proceeds of Web site sales.

The boom in Bucs merchandise also reflects a broader fad.

"The whole license category has benefited from a fashion trend as well," said Bob McGee, editor of Sporting Goods Intelligence, an industry publication.

[Times photo: Mike Pease]
Pete and Jan Crombie of Weeki Wachee check out each other's purchases at Buccaneer Heaven on Florida Avenue in Tampa.

It's hip, he said, to wear a sports jersey just to hang out. Sometimes buyers choose their apparel based on clothing color, not team allegiance.

McGee said when the Bucs ditched the winking buccaneer logo and the Creamsicle color scheme in 1997, the team opened up new markets for its gear.

"Thank God for that, actually," McGee said. "They've done better since they changed to red."

Bucs gear always has sold well in the 11 Sports Authority stores in the Tampa Bay area, said David Green, district manager. But he has seen a lot more sales since the Bucs trounced the San Francisco 49ers last weekend at Raymond James Stadium, an NFC divisional playoff game.

"You wouldn't believe the traffic we had this week since the big win last weekend," Green said. "We're hoping for a win this weekend, not only for the Bucs, but for us."

A victory over the Eagles in Philadelphia would put the Bucs in the Super Bowl, which holds the promise of even bigger business.

The NFL estimated its licensed retailers sold $100-million in Super Bowl products for each of the last two years. The Super Bowl merchandise record was set in 1997 when the Green Bay Packers defeated the New England Patriots and generated sales of $130-million.

Local people are ready for a similar windfall.

"Should the Bucs win in Philadelphia, it will be a big deal for us," said Philip Ruzicka, vice president of Full Bore Graphics, a family-owned T-shirt printing company based in St. Petersburg.

On Wednesday, he was busy cranking out 500 to 600 T-shirts an hour. Many among his staff of 30 are working overtime, which is welcome in a retail environment that has been dismal in recent times.

"It's good for our economy," Ruzicka said. "We need this."

-- Alicia Caldwell can be reached at alicia@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8145.