The clock struck 5 p.m., and Sam Pletcher finally had a chance to breathe, refold some T-shirts and straighten up the sales floor at the Duck Store in Portland's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood.

It was the Monday after the University of Oregon's decisive victory over Kansas in the NCAA Tournament gave it a ticket to the Final Four, and the commemorative "Cut the Net" T-shirts that hit the racks that morning were long gone.

Pletcher received dozens of calls that day about those shirts, as seen on Oregon players after their 74-60 win. "Call me when they arrive," she heard time and again. But they'll have to wait for reinforcements and the end of spring break, not that it dampened anyone's mood or the foot traffic. "Everyone is super excited," she said.

That excitement has carried into the rest of the week as tipoff nears for the Oregon men's team's first trip to the Final Four since the tournament's birth in 1939. Whether the dream run ends Saturday or stretches into Monday's title game, school officials say they see nothing but positives for the university.

More basketball wins mean more eyeballs on the University of Oregon, which in turn could mean more merchandise sales and more prospective students considering Eugene down the line. The total impact of all the intangibles - like the weeks of national television exposure -- won't be known for potentially a year or more, but the Final Four chance has already guaranteed the school and the Pac-12 conference more television revenue from the NCAA in the near future.

"It gets us tremendous exposure to the entire world," said Michael Schill, UO's president. "When you're located in Oregon, you need that sort of exposure. This is a small state. We want to make a big impact."

Alums are excited

Schill said the tournament run -- and the Elite Eight appearance of the youthful women's squad -- has galvanized an already excited alumni base.

The UO Alumni Association planned a series of events in Phoenix this week to drum up support. Watch parties were organized in Seattle, Denver, Washington D.C., New York and other parts of the country. The Athletic Department's allotment of tickets was gone early in the week.

The school, roughly $1.6 billion into a $2 billion capital fundraising campaign for academics and athletics, is feeling the love.

"Almost everybody wants to be my friend now," Schill quipped, saying he received calls and emails from donors throughout the week.

He gave a shout-out to one of the nation's most prominent boosters, Nike co-founder and UO alum Phil Knight, for the continued success of the school's athletics program.

"What it shows is that philanthropy, carefully invested, generates results," Schill said in an interview of Knight's support. "It's done that on the athletic side, and it's going to do that on the academic side," he said, a nod to Knight's recent commitment to give $500 million to the school for a science campus over the next decade.

Knight cut down part of the net on Saturday, an honor typically reserved for players and university leaders.

Flutie Effect

Athletic success and a resulting interest in prospective applicants has long been a theory in higher education circles. It even has a name: The Flutie Effect. That refers to the surge in applications at Boston College after quarterback Doug Flutie's standout 1984 season.

UO has seen it, too. The university saw a 30 percent surge in applications from out-of-state students in 2011, after it lost to Auburn in a nail-biter in the BCS National Championship game. The Tigers won that game 22-19, on a field goal as time expired.

After the school's second football title shot in 2015, fall applications from out-of-state students increased, but just 4.8 percent.

"You can't have the Flutie Effect happen over and over again," said Tobin Klinger, a UO spokesman, citing the program's established national brand.

Schill said a survey of all UO students showed that 82 percent of out-of-state students said athletic programs were either a factor in their decision to attend the university, or raised their overall awareness of the school. That compares with 17 percent of of the overall student body motivated by school sports.

Schill said March Madness exposure gives the school an opportunity to tell its story to more people. "They will start asking questions about our academic program and they will start learning more about the program because it's gotten their attention," he said.

National picture

It's too early to project precise numbers, but Oregon said it pulled in $4 million in licensing revenue last year off branded apparel. School officials expect to outpace that total this year.

Arlyn Schaufler, general manager of the nonprofit Duck Store, said that though sales this week have been brisk, they don't compare with the football successes of recent years. Leading up to Oregon's Rose Bowl appearance in 1995, Schaufler said, fans were "buying with reckless abandon."

"There's just not as much excitement for basketball," he said.

But a national title might change that, Schaufler said. He would expect "seven figures" in merchandise sales at his stores if Coach Dana Altman's squad won the whole tournament.

Matt Powell, a sports industry analyst with NPD Group, said the Final Four run is not likely to be "that big of a deal" for the Ducks brand or sales.

"Oregon already has some very loyal fans," Powell said.

He said professional franchises typically see a significant jump in merchandise sales after a championship. That's especially true if a team hasn't won in decades. He cited the Chicago Cubs' World Series victory last fall.

Short of a championship, Powell said, any sales increase would be marginal. "Everyone is aware of the team, certainly because of the energy around football and the uniforms and all that," he said, "But I would not talk about them as a national brand."

Fanatics, the online retailer that is the official licensed merchandiser for Oregon Athletics and hundreds of other sports programs, said UO saw a 325 percent increase in merchandise sales this week versus the previous week.

The company declined to disclose dollar amounts but did say that that sales of Oregon gear since Saturday ranked behind North Carolina, South Carolina and Gonzaga, the other Final Four teams.

The Ducks entered the Final Four with significant institutional knowledge and preparation thanks to successful tournament runs in the past few years under Altman and the 2010 and 2013 NCAA football title game losses.

Craig Pintens, UO's senior associate athletic director, said the school was ready and had pre-planned much of the merchandising before the tournament alongside its retail partners.

More money for all

While merchandise sales and other economic impacts are tough to calculate in real time, the more Oregon wins, the more money it will earn for its conference foes.

In 2016, the NCAA and CBS and Turner Sports signed an eight-year extension worth $8.8 billion to keep the tournament on the networks through 2032. That deal piggybacked on an existing 14-year, $10.8 billion contract signed in 2010.

Athletic success boosts the bottom line of all Pac-12 teams under the complicated formula the NCAA uses to distribute television revenue back to schools.

The Pac-12 decides to split the revenue evenly.

Each tournament game appearance, not including the championship game, earns the conference one "unit," dispersed each year and added up over a rolling six-year period.

This year, each school will receive roughly $1 million thanks to the conference's tournament success from 2011 to 2016.

Next year, that payout will increase thanks to the Ducks, UCLA and Arizona's deep tournament runs this year.

Larry Scott, the conference's commissioner, said in a statement that he's "thrilled" for Altman and his staff and players. "This weekend also represents an important milestone and strong signal to the entire country of the Pac-12's resurgence as an elite basketball conference," Scott said.

"We have made major strides in the last few years as a conference with increased competitive depth, outstanding coaches, and first class facilities, and we expect the positive trajectory of our conference to continue in future years."

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen