Piles of sweatshirts with the “Block A” logo and NCAA Final Four trademark are all over town as the Wildcats men’s basketball team prepares for its first appearance in the NCAA semifinals since 2001.
Amazon and other shopping sites are advertising even more UA swag, some with slightly off-looking logos, blurry printing, or low quality materials.
It’s Cat Hanson’s job to stop the unofficial products from being marketed. Hanson said her official title is Program Manager, “and I have morphed into Intellectual Property and Brand Protection Specialist,” she said.
With the help of an internet-scraping service, she inspects listings for products that are not officially licensed to use the University’s — or NCAA’s — registered trademarks. With the excitement surrounding the NCAA tournament, the search is turning up a lot of hits.
“It's about double the amount of listings or takedowns that we’re doing than normal. It's crazy,” she said, laughing.
Many purveyors of knockoff merchandise don’t want trouble. They delist their knockoff products as soon as she calls them.
“They know that they're infringing. That's their intention, to make quick money or steal people's credit card information. If they get caught, they'll do a takedown and hopefully they won't come back,” she said.
Others don’t realize they’re using trademarked images illegally. If the merchandise meets UA standards, Hanson tries to get them signed up as official licensees, so both the university and the seller benefit.
You can tell if an item is authorized UA merchandise. “The main thing is to look for the officially licensed product hologram, hang tags, or stickers on all merchandise. Everything has to have that; if it doesn't there that's a pretty good indicator that it's not authentic product,” Hanson said.
What about those pop-up shops?
Pop-up merchants may set up shop at tents around town as game day approaches, but not all are illegitimate. A recent post on X showed one such pop-up at Broadway and Rosemont, leading some users to ask if the merchandise was real or fake.
It turns out the Broadway/Rosemont site sells the real thing. It’s one of several UA-approved pop-up sites around the area.
Here is the full list, supplied by Hanson:
Authorized Campus Store Pop-Up Shops:
+ Park & Speedway (10a–4p) + Park & 6th St (10a–4p) + Speedway & Campbell (10a–4p) + Maingate (10a–4p) + Football Stadium parking lot (10a–4p; 8a–6p starting 4/6) + Campbell & 6th (10a–4p) + Hi Corbett parking lot (10a–4p; 8a–6p starting 4/6)
Pop-up hours will be 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. from Monday, 3/30 through Thursday, 4/9, with extended hours (8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.) beginning Monday, 4/6 at Hi Corbett and the Football Stadium parking lot.
Other approved Pop-Ups:
+ Broadway/Rosemont + Broadway/Tucson + Oracle/Orange Grove + Old Spanish Trail/Broadway + Grant / Tanque Verde (by Scented Leaf)
Did I buy a phony product?
If you suspect merchandise is counterfeit, you can report it on the UA’s Counterfeit Reporting Form. Hanson said her office receives many reports, and checks into all of them.
