Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Flashback 1998: Roy Rogers "He could always move the merchandise"

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

     One point being debated in our new union contract is whether to put constraints on freelance work. That's nuts. I've always freelanced — that's what got me writing for the Sun-Times in the first place — and am proud of the range of publications I've written for. This is the only piece I've ever had published in Sports Illustrated. It came about because I was researching Roy Roger's obit — I had come upon a story of him proposing to Dale Evans, a Chicago radio singer, while on horseback at the old Chicago Stadium in 1947, and thought that moment alone was worth eulogizing Roy. One of the clips was a photo from Parade magazine in 1960 of Roy in front of all this NFL crap, and it said .... well, I'll let you read the story. The only other thing I want to add is this only got published because I approached Rick Telander, who had just come to the paper from Sports Illustrated, and asked him for a contact. Generous soul that he was then and is now, he put me in touch with an editor.

     The easiest way to show love for your team is to buy its official logo T-shirt. Or baby bib. Or key chain, chips bowl, coffee cup or athletic sock, or one of the thousands of other products plastered with pro team logos. Sports licensing is a multibillion-dollar business that grows bigger every year. But it wasn't always so. Go back 40 years, to the first effort, by the National Football League, to sell a team image on a national scale. There, smiling and squinting and patting the side of his trusty palomino, is the unexpected figure of Roy Rogers.
     Yes, Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, who died on July 6 at the age of 86, was the midwife of national sports team marketing. When the original NFL Enterprises--now called NFL Properties, the division of the NFL that licenses team logos--was created in 1959, it was a division of Roy Rogers Enterprises. Happy trails, indeed. Before Rogers rode into town, each of the 12 NFL teams took care of its own licensing, what little there was. Some teams even gave away their rights, thinking the team was getting free publicity.
     In 1958 the Los Angeles Rams, the first team to put its logo on the side of its helmets, started selling a bobble-head doll of a Rams player. The doll was a hit. "This is the first we can identify of team logos being applied to a product," says Roger Atkin, who recently retired as vice president of retail sales at NFL Properties.
     That success did not go unnoticed by Rogers, a genius marketer.
     His TV show, which aired from 1951 to '57, was one of the most popular of the decade. At the peak of his fame, 400 Roy Rogers products were on sale. The 1955 Sears catalogue offered 13 pages of Roy Rogers gear--cowboy outfits, lunch boxes, flashlights, hats, slippers, watches, even an inflatable Trigger.
     Rogers's earnings from his licensing agreements dwarfed his salary as a cowboy star, and after his show went off the air, he couldn't see himself returning to the grind of making movies.
     "He just decided he didn't want to make any more films," says Larry Kent, 85, who was general manager of Roy Rogers Enterprises. With the notion that pro teams could tap into the same market as cowboy stars, Rogers approached Major League Baseball, which took a pass. The NFL didn't. Talks began, spearheaded by Pete Rozelle, then the dynamic young general manager of the Rams.

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12 comments:

  1. I still have a 65 year old Roy Rogers thermos bottle from the lunchbox. The lunchbox must have rusted away.

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  2. And then you had Roy Rogers restaurants, which I'm somewhat surprised to discover, still exist. Though, after a couple restructurings of the business, they're at 40 locations, having peaked at 648 in 1990.

    "Merchandising is merchandising. There's no
    difference, whether a store is selling a Roy Rogers revolver or a junior St. Louis Cardinal football outfit just like the pros wear."

    Or, evidently, a roast beef sandwich and an order of fries...

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  3. I believe I had my Roy Rogers chaps on the day I decided to build a little bonfire in the prairie down the alley from our house on 78th Street. I overheard my uncle visiting me in the hospital advise my father to sue because the material was ignited so easily and inflicted 3rd degree burns so quickly on my legs, but that didn't make a whole lot sense to me and apparently to my father either. My sister stole the matches; ergo she was the guilty party. I remind her of that every few years.

    john

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    1. One of the things I always liked most about visiting relatives in Pennsylvania and Maryland growing was being able to go to Roy Rogers. For fast food, it was great. If there is any offering in the fast food pantheon that compares to the Double R Bar Burger, I have yet to savor it.

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  4. I suppose I went to Roy Rogers at some point in my life. I believe Evanston had at least one, near Howard and Western. But I usually went to Arby's, because that was what was more available in Chicago, especially when I worked in the Loop.

    My wife's first husband was from Binghamton, NY. On road trips, they went to Roy Rogers franchises in upstate NY and PA. She says that comparing Arby's to Roy Rogers is like comparing a lawnmower to a Swiss watch.

    The remaining 40 Roy Rogers Restaurants are in these six states, along with the number of locations:

    Maryland: 22
    New Jersey: 2
    New York: 1
    Pennsylvania: 7
    Virginia: 7
    West Virginia: 1

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    1. The Evanston restaurant at Howard & Asbury was Prince Castle, which was mostly an ice cream place.

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    2. There was a "covered-wagon shaped' structure a couple of hundred feet north of the northeast corner of the intersection...on the east side of Asbury. Pretty sure that was a Roy Rogers location, and then later an Arby's. It closed up in the Eighties and was used by a guy who strung up lights every December and used the property as a Christmas tree lot, even after the building was demolished. He was from way up north, in Wisconsin or Michigan, and he would stay in a small trailer on the lot.

      I remember all that because I lived on Brummel, just west of Asbury, before moving back to Main Street after my divorce. I believe the Prince Castle was on the west side of Asbury...and it was a Cock Robin by the time I lived there, in 1990 and 1991.

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    3. No, Prince Castle was on the east side of Asbury, where CVS is now.

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    4. On the corner? Or a bit to the north? Next to Roy Rogers? The NE corner of Howard and Asbury had something else for a while... back in the Eighties. Either a doughnut shop or a pizza place. Maybe both,

      Hey, what the hell...I left Evanston thirty years ago, at 45, long before the CVS was built. Those days are gone forever, over a long time ago...oh, yeah. Which means I'm 75 now, when things start getting fuzzier. It's all part of the geezerhood experience. Happens even to those with elephant memories like mine. Pass the Prevagen, please.

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    5. Prevagen is a total fraud, no double testing has ever been done.
      The Prince Castle would've been at the north end of where CVS is now.

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  5. Arby's is not good food. ;)

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    1. You're wrong! Arby's is great! But I miss the Arby-Q.

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