Paul Gores

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Until now, a visit to a Brewers Team Store or kiosk at Miller Park typically meant a fan would be paying a premium to buy a cap, T-shirt or other merchandise at the stadium.

But this season, with the Milwaukee Brewers for the first time operating the stores in-house instead of paying a concessionaire to run them, prices have come down, Brewers executives say.

As fans pour in for opening day on Thursday, they say, people will see a difference.

“Eliminating that middle person allows us to have more flexibility, more fan-friendly pricing,” said Rick Schlesinger, president of business operations for the Brewers. “So the fans will notice the prices have been reduced.”

How big are the price cuts?

Take a Brewers cap, for instance. The Brewers stock more than 150 designs of caps at Miller Park in a variety of price ranges. Last year, the least expensive cap would have been about $25, said Jill Aronoff, vice president of retail for the Brewers. This year the cheapest cap is priced at about $15.

“Most everything has a lower price on it than last year,” Aronoff said. “Our jerseys are lower. Our T-shirts are lower. Our caps lower. Our caps start at $15 and go up from there.”

The Brewers had been using the national concessionaire firm Delaware North to run its team merchandise stores at Miller Park. Delaware North still runs the food and beverage operation for the Brewers, but team executives thought they could handle merchandise sales themselves — and even do it better.

“Teams are looking at retail differently than they used to. We feel that nobody knows our brand better than us.” Schlesinger said.

“Retail is an extension of our brand and it’s so integral to our brand that we felt very comfortable taking it over. Certainly it’s a big operation to manage. But we felt with Jill’s leadership and the staff she’s built, we had the leadership, the people, the systems in place to operate it efficiently.”

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The Brewers have eight full-time employees in the team’s retail unit, and expect to have about 100 part-time workers staffing the stores and kiosks by opening day.

But the Brewers didn’t invest only in people to take over the Miller Park stores. The team invested in technology that should result in faster-moving checkout times at the stores.

“We’ve got mobile POS (point of sale) scanners so literally we can go to people in line and check them out with mobile scanners instead of them having to belly up to the fixed stand,” Schlesinger said.

Added Aronoff: “People won’t be standing in line a long time. They can enjoy the game, which is why they’re here.”

The in-stadium stores include some items that are sold exclusively by the Brewers, like specially designed caps and sweatshirts. Aronoff said a member of the retail team sometimes meets with apparel-maker New Era, for example, to design new Brewer caps that help keep the inventory fresh with new looks.

Asked what's the most popular item in the Brewers Team Stores today, Aronoff didn’t hesitate.

“Definitely anything that has Yelich’s name on it,” she said, referring to 2018 National League Most Valuable Player Christian Yelich.

“We brought some T-shirts in to celebrate the MVP title. His name and number — and his jersey — outsell all the other players right now.”

Yelich led the Brewers to within one game of going to the World Series last year, and hopes are high for another strong season in 2019. Schlesinger said season ticket sales are up 20 percent this year.

That means more people inside Miller Park, and more opportunities to sell Brewers gear to fans. The amount and types of merchandise has been expanded, Schlesinger said, and having no middle person to run the stores lets the Brewers’ retail experts try out more ideas and react more quickly to what fans wants as the season goes on.

“We can be a lot more nimble in buying, and Jill has total authority to determine what to buy,” he said.

Schlesinger added: “We’ve made a lot of changes. The thing that is most visible that fans will recognize is we’ve reduced prices.”

Paul Gores can be reached at (414) 224-2392. Follow him on Twitter @pgores