Football is a religion in Saskatchewan.
Wherever you go in the province you are likely to see an item of clothing or object with the green and highly identifiable logo of the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League.
To make Rider merchandise even more accessible to people in the province, a store opened in the Midtown Plaza shopping centre in downtown Saskatoon in July 2020 joining The Rider Store at Mosaic Stadium in Regina to sell all things Riders – from jerseys to pins and decals to all sorts of different novelties.
All sporting the Rider green and the team’s logo.
The store at Mosaic Stadium opened in 2017 when the Stadium itself opened. It’s just over 5,000 square feet. The Midtown Plaza store is just under 1,900 square feet.
Anthony Partipilo, Chief Brand Officer for the team, said the Riders’ brand has been built over decades of loyal fans riding the waves of boom and bust.
“The Rider fans have always been incredibly resilient people. Hard working, roll up your sleeves, salt of the earth folks that also want to never give up, regardless of the obstacles thrown at the club over many, many decades. What was there to pick up the team was Rider Nation,” he said.
“So this really is about what are we doing at a time where the Roughriders’ franchise has never been better financially. Never been on more sound footing, plays out of the most sophisticated and beautiful stadium in the whole country. The flagship really of the CFL is the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“And so what do we do to sort of as a tribute to Rider fans, how do we bring the Rider brand to the rest of the country so that they can also share in what we are very, very proud of here. A lot of what our retail strategy is is not only to ensure that Rider logo, that green and white, is spread out throughout the entire province as much as possible, but also throughout the entire nation and in fact internationally because Rider fans remind us constantly that they’re everywhere, not just in Saskatchewan.”
Partipilo said the online store has also been very successful for the Riders particularly throughout the pandemic and it continues to have very strong sales.
“While oftentimes we don’t think about the online presence as being a retail channel, it’s actually a very, very strong channel for us. It’s always been for the Rider brand about leadership. The Roughrider fans are not satisfied with second best. They want to be the best at everything so it’s imperative on us to be the best at everything we do and retail and merchandise is nothing short of the best in the league. We know that regardless of the size of the markets that we compete with,” he said.
“The brand needed to be a leader. The brand needed to be proud of Saskatchewan. And part of our strategy in the new retail store design, which a lot of credit goes to Mark (Habicht, Director of Retail for the club) for when we built the Stadium he re-designed the store footprint and it’s a beautiful store if you’re at Mosaic Stadium. We felt that we started down that path and the store at Midtown was an opportunity to build on that and create an experience that not just Saskatchewan fans, Rider fans, will be proud of the brand but because the brand resonates so powerfully everywhere we felt that Midtown is an attractive mall location for tourists. A lot of people who visit the city will go through that mall.”
Habicht said the Riders made their first foray into Saskatoon in 2009 and Midtown was the mall it had targeted as its the premier shopping centre in the city and in the heart of the city. But for a variety of reasons that didn’t work out. What followed was a presence in a couple of other malls in Saskatoon.
“But the dream was always to kind of have a central location and when the opportunity to go back into Midtown came up, we really started re-evaluating what we wanted to do and the way we see retail going in the future, we thought that building what we’ll call a proper flagship store right in the heart of the city just made sense,” he said.
“We’re trying to create a really great shopping environment . . . The new Stadium afforded us this luxury to be able to have a central location in Regina and another one in Saskatoon.”
Jean-Pierre Lacroix, President and Founder of Shikatani Lacroix Design (SLD), was instrumental in the design of the Rider stores.
“Anthony Partipilo was our client when he was with the Toronto Blue Jays and we did for him the Stadium shop and we did the flagship CF Toronto Eaton Centre shop. He then left the Toronto Blue Jays and was hired by the Saskatchewan Roughriders to kind of do the same thing but also to be head of the marketing. And that’s what he’s done, driving access to fan base material, fashion items and memorabilia to help build the brand,” said Lacroix.
“And the Saskatchewan Roughriders have an incredible fanatic following group of customers . . . We want to mirror the emotional connection the fans have with the brand. We want to capture that sense of excitement and also these fans know the colours of the brand and it allows them to make that connection from a brand equity standpoint.”
The 109th Grey Cup will be played this year on Sunday November 20 at Mosaic Stadium.
Habicht said retail sales for the Riders have been quite strong this year.
“Even last year was surprisingly good in the shortened season and it’s really carried into this year. We’ve been extremely happy. Our average sales are up. Our numbers are up across the board. It’s been very, very strong and we really see that momentum. And obviously we’re hosting the Grey Cup this year so we really see that momentum carrying through all the way to the end of the year,” he said. “So we’re really excited about the opportunity here.”
Habicht said the club has thought about expanding its retail presence to other Saskatchewan markets but with the way the online channel has taken off that’s probably where the club’s focus will be in the next few years.
“But never say never. I’ve been here since 2009 and certainly we’ve heard from our fans all over the province in places like Yorkton and Moose Jaw and Prince Albert and they all would love to have a Rider store. In fact, I get phone calls on a regular basis from places like Medicine Hat (Alberta) who would love to have a store in Medicine Hat but as of right now I think we’re pretty happy with the strategy we’ve taken on,” he said.
“The store (in Regina) and the store in Midtown better reflects where we’ve taken the merchandise over the years. In early years it was maybe a little bit more fan gear. Now it’s much more fashion focused, much more targeted to everybody in the family. Certainly more targeted to women. We’re seeing huge growth in the women’s sector and sales in the women’s area. Midtown reflects that so much better in terms of the product and the customer that we’re really looking for.”
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