By Mariana Ionova
News Editor
The university’s athletics department is teaming up with Adidas to bring a line of apparel bearing the new Rams logo to the Ryerson bookstore for the first time.
Adidas is putting together a line of merchandise with the new logo that will be available to all students sometime in the coming months.
“We’re still waiting for Adidas to provide back the product line and then we’ll review [it] at that point. So it’s still really in the early stages,” said Stephanie White, associate director of athletics.
White said the gear will not necessarily be identical to the uniforms worn by Ryerson athletes but will likely include variations of the apparel. The line is expected to consist of popular Adidas items and will not be designed exclusively for Ryerson.
“They would build a line of what they think the top sellers would be,” said White.
Athletics director Ivan Joseph said selling branded merchandise would help boost school spirit and pride among students.
“In the world I live in, I believe that everybody should feel like they’re a Ram, not just the Ryerson athletes,” Joseph said.
“We want people to identify as being a part of Eggy, part of the spirit that Eggy represents. So we’ll put the logo on t-shirts, on sweatshirts, on hats, on scarves and have it on sale.”
Ryerson President Sheldon Levy said he didn’t know Rams-branded gear wasn’t available to everyone until now and said the move should have been made a long time ago.
“If money wasn’t an object I’d give them away if I could because I’d like to see more and more students wearing the university name,” said Levy.
But, even though anyone would be able to wear the clothing, Joseph said he is not concerned that students could compromise the Rams’ image if they conduct themselves inappropriately while wearing branded gear.
“Anytime you have something with Ryerson on you … you have the ability to enhance the university’s reputation or you have the ability to damage the university’s reputation,” he said.
No conclusive deal between the bookstore and Ryerson athletics has been signed yet but the profits from the project will likely go to both parties.
“We would look at finding means where some money could come back to athletics to help support but obviously a part of it has to pay for the apparel alone, so we haven’t done a complete, signed deal with the bookstore yet,” said White.
There is no set date for when the merchandise will be available at the bookstore but, if Ryerson athletics likes the line proposed by Adidas, it will make it available “sooner than later,” according to White.
“There’s no timing as to when exactly it’s going to appear in the bookstore,” she said.
“You never know, it could be this year.”
Leave a Reply