The games are 100 days away, but smart marketers are already getting Olympic fever.
They include San Diego-based Pacific Sportswear Co. Inc., which is distributing Salt Lake City 2002 baseball caps.
Actually they’re caps with a twist. The twist is that the designs on the front light up.
Olympic lettering and symbols on the hats are accented with tiny, blinking lights.
Actually what glows is the ends of fiber optic strands. They carry light from a source concealed within the hat.
A 3-volt battery the size of a nickel powers the lights, which can blink for upwards of 60 hours. The battery is replaceable.
American Needle, Inc. has licensed rights to the Olympic symbol to Pacific Sportswear.
A companion item is a blinking cap that reads “USA All The Way.”
Company President Rich Soergel said he expects to get his first shipment of 10,000 hats in early November. They are en route from his supplier in China.
Soergel’s goal is to sell 50,000.
He’s hoping that people running in the nationwide torch relay will wear his product. The relay, where runners pass the Olympic flame along through most of the continental United States, takes place from December to February. It reaches San Diego in mid-January.
Pacific Sportswear sells the hats for a wholesale price of $12.50 per unit, with a 24-piece minimum.
More information is on the company Web site at (www.fiberoptichats.com).
Pacific Sportswear wholesales other timely and topical merchandise, like a light-up pumpkin cap, a fur-trimmed Santa hat and a purple New Year’s cap.
There are also blinking “Top Gun” caps depicting fighter jets , a reminder of the Navy school that used to occupy Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. The company had ordered the caps for this year’s Miramar Air Show, which was then canceled. As of last week, the Web site was offering the caps in lots of 72 for “close to cost.”
Pacific Sportswear also sells car flags, patriotic lapel pins and patches, plus patches and hats paying tribute to New York City’s police and fire departments.
