Photo by Collin Cooper
The UVU Bookstore debuted an expansion in June that highlights the Adidas Sideline collection of apparel on the northwest end of the store.
The new section of the store features athletic-style UVU clothing ranging from polo shirts and basketball shorts to two shelves featuring various styles of hats.
Matthew Chambers, licensing manager for UVU, said the change comes with the bookstore wanting a better affiliation with Adidas since the brand is the sponsor of Wolverine athletics.
“Typically, in a college setting in retail, you usually have a sideline focus,” Chambers said. “So, if you’re an Under Armour school or a Nike school or an Adidas school, you will usually have a section of your bookstore that handles that.”
The addition will help the bookstore better showcase the Adidas products than in the past, but it will also continue to carry other options to appeal to a diverse student body.
“They work really hard to align themselves with being able to provide a variety of products in various price categories so that students with different budgets can purchase things,” Chambers said. “Also, you’re going to see different varieties of product design and artwork design so that certain products will cater to different students because not all students will like Adidas.”
The addition has been welcomed with mixed reviews by the student body. Matthew Boonmee, a junior business management major, thinks the addition is unnecessary.
“I rarely see many students wearing UVU apparel and Adidas apparel is also expensive,” Boonmee said. “But if they make some pretty good looking apparel it might catch on and more students might wear it.”
Henrique Ribeiro, a sophomore in automotive technology, said, “I think we will see more students actually wearing UVU apparel around. Hopefully the UVU-Adidas [deal] will make better merchandise compared to what we had in the bookstore before.”
“I think they’ve done a really good job at branding that section, creating a cohesive brand between Adidas and UVU and elevating the store’s look,” said Chambers
Louise Bridge, the Bookstore’s director, said there are currently no plans to hold a grand opening event.
