Those include Yahoo!, local Ford dealers and Anything For Sale By Owner, what Lozano called a start-up rival of eBay that's based in Philly. All survived what Rollins' agent called a five-step process they put in place "to try and understand who these companies are and who we want to be involved with. Those are the three we did. I'd say we probably turned down five or six that just weren't the ideal situation for Jimmy."
Rollins entered the 2007 season as a three-time All-Star with one of the game's flashiest gloves. But his prediction that the Phillies would win their division, followed by his MVP season and that postseason berth, made more than baseball turn its head. Henry Schafer, executive VP of Marketing Evaluations, the firm that assesses a player's advertising appeal in what's called a Q Score, said last week that they will be measuring Rollins for the first time when they issue their study in mid-March. Results should be available in April. It's being done, Schafer wrote in an e-mail, "in anticipation of his growing awareness and potential interest for advertisers/marketers."
Interestingly, sales of Rollins' apparel during the season were fifth among Phillies players, said Phillies director of merchandising Scott Brandreth. Once he won the MVP award, "he didn't quite catch Chase [Utley], but he passed everyone else." And if you count the five Rollins MVP items the Phillies began selling Nov. 29, he would have passed everyone.
Modell's marketing manager, Derrick Morgan, had a similar story, noting that their Rollins MVP T-shirt "sold phenomenal around the holidays," although he didn't want to release specific numbers. "This coming season we have increased the quantity of Rollins' jerseys that we're going to carry as well as the number of T-shirts." Interest in his apparel was already high, Morgan said. "But the MVP award definitely spiked his popularity with Phillies fans." *
