Brace yourself for Monkey Madness.
Prairie Graphics, a Lawrence-based screen printer, this morning will start running 300 T-shirts featuring Roy Williams and the now-famous "Stank 'Em" monkey, the good-luck mascot that helped lift Kansas University's Jayhawks past Syracuse and into the Sweet 16.
An order awaits filling Monday at Midwest Graphics Inc., 800 N.H.
"It's March Madness around here, baby," Jon Hofer said Monday, inside the Prairie Graphics shop he owns at 641 E. 22nd St. "They don't call it that for nothing."
Hofer and other screen printers in Lawrence are busy filling orders for shirts connected with the nail-biting NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. KU plays Illinois in the Midwest Regional semifinal Friday night in San Antonio.
Hofer said his 10 employees already have printed about 5,000 shirts for the tournament, including those to be shipped to the four regional sites for this weekend's Sweet 16. He expects the three-week tournament to generate about 10 percent of his annual sales.
KU's own "Sweet 16" edition is a special order. It builds off the KU coach's decision to have his players knock a stuffed monkey off his back prior to Sunday's game against Syracuse, to relieve him of the pressure of losing in the second round during each of the past three seasons.
The monkey design complete with the adopted mascot's team-bestowed "Stank 'Em" moniker crossed the desk Monday morning of Paul Vander Tuig, KU's trademark licensing director.
He approved the look, but knows it won't last long.
"It's such an opportunistic time, both for creative licensees and retailers," Vander Tuig said. "It's an opportunity to get some of those designs out there.
Here are the total royalties collected since 1988, when KU won the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: 1988, $54,472; 1989, $136,542; 1990, $108,762; 1991, $209,812; and 1992, $300,590.
Also: 1993, $312,911; 1994, $524,669; 1995, $535,314; and 1996, $590,175.
Also: 1997, $673,794; 1998, $780,321; 1999, $669,560; and 2000, $488,027.
"The only problem is it's a Sweet 16 design. Once we advance through the tournament or come home, it becomes somewhat limited. The shirts become obsolete. You'll never see an Elite Eight shirt, because it only has a one-day life."
Across town at Midwest Graphics Inc., 800 N.H., owner Leon Dreiling knew he didn't have a chance at landing the monkey business. He focused instead on filling orders for about 200 vendors outside tournament sites and in 13 of 16 towns that have teams participating.
Midwest Graphics has three dozen employees working up to 70 hours a week filling orders. By the time a champion is crowned, Dreiling figures to have printed up to 70,000 T-shirts, or enough to account for about 20 percent of the company's total revenue for the year.
"It's worse than 'madness,' " he said. "It consumes you. It really does, with the all-nighters that you'll do when the four teams are determined. We'll just have to print all the time."
And the activity is by no means consistent. Midwest Graphics received an order for 1,600 shirts as soon as Indiana State beat Oklahoma in the first round, but has yet to receive a single order featuring a Jayhawk even after KU won two games and reached the Sweet 16.
"Some of them the KUs and Kentuckys and Arizonas they don't want any until they get to the Final Four. For them it's old hat: Been there, done that," Dreiling said. "I haven't sold one Kansas University T-shirt, and I'm right here in Lawrence, Kansas.
"I don't have any orders for them until they make the Final Four, so we probably won't be making any. They've got to beat Illinois and then, probably, Arizona. They've got a tough row to hoe."
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