The Miami Heat continues to lead the NBA in retail innovation, opening a 25,000 square foot warehouse … [+]
In a nondescript warehouse over a dozen miles away from the bright lights of FTX Arena and the gleaming waters of Biscayne Bay, the Miami Heat are doing something different. Again.
They have designated 20,000 square feet of workspace to handle the demands of their prosperous retail sales, something that no other NBA franchise does. There, just days away from the launch of their latest Nike “City Edition” apparel, they are processing incoming orders, customizing jerseys and shipping their merchandise.
In that warehouse, they are telling stories.
That’s the vision behind Miami’s creative and marketing department, the largest – and most successful – of its kind in the NBA, according to Michael McCullough, the team’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. McCullough has assembled his group of visionaries over the 25 years that he has been a member of Miami’s business operations unit. That longevity has given him and his team a dichotomous freedom to thrive: the stability and well-earned trust allows them to be innovative in ways that other NBA franchises are not able or willing to be.
“It’s an organizational initiative, from top to bottom,” says McCullough, but admits that innovation isn’t always an easy sell. Ideas are developed and shaped but, ultimately, need to be approved by the Heat’s top brass, including Micky Arison, Miami’s Managing General Partner, and Pat Riley, the team’s long-standing President. For all the crafted images of tailored suits and slicked-back hair, Riley’s collars are more blue than starched. So, when the marketing team pitched the idea of a “pink jersey” (the team’s “Sunset Vice” merchandise line from 2018), McCullough imagined there would be some blowback.
Instead, Riley didn’t waver in his commitment or support. “His exact words were, ‘I trust you guys.’ I will never say [he] gives us carte blanche, but he understands the power of branding and the power of what we’ve built. We’re not some rogue marketing team, running off and doing their own thing. Every single thing we do runs through them because they’re a part of this thing.”
That synergy has led to unparalleled success for an aspect of the team that is largely overlooked in light of Miami’s on-court accomplishments. Through Shaquille O’Neal’s tenure with the Heat, Dwyane Wade’s historic career, LeBron James’ two championships and, now, with Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro guiding the team, Miami’s sales have shown steady growth. When the team went through a retooling phase in between superstar acquisitions, McCullough and his group launched their “Vice” edition apparel and continued to lead the NBA in jersey sales, even as the Heat struggled to make the playoffs.
“Traditionally, it’s the name on the back of the jersey that sells. That’s the driver,” says Andy Montero, Miami’s Vice President of Retail and Business Development. “But I have never seen in my life where the name in the front means more than the one on the back.”
Montero is a fixture to any longtime Heat fan. Watch any home broadcast and the caricatured “Crazy Andy” is usually linked to the “Item of the Game,” announcing a limited-time sale for a particular piece of merchandise. But Montero brought his savvy and enthusiasm from Champs Sports in 1998 to take over Miami’s retail operations and helped spearhead the team’s sales success for 24 seasons.
Montero manages the Heat’s burgeoning online sales, unique customization facilities and five retail outlets, including a new store that opened in November in Miami’s biggest mall and one at the Miami International Airport. “When you travel through the airport, the number one thing that sells is Miami. People want to take a little piece of that back home. So, it’s not the Heat, but the city itself. It’s fun. It’s bright. Even if you’re not a fan of the team,” explains Montero. “It looks super cool. And if it says ‘Miami’ you’re going to buy it.”
Miami’s latest brick-and-mortar outlet store opened in Dadeland Mall in November 2022
That’s part of the process that has set Miami apart from the 29 other NBA franchises; developing the Miami Heat brand to exist as a separate entity from the on-court product. The team created its own clothing line named “Court Culture,” which operates like any other fashion enterprise, complete with its own official NBA license. Collaborating with well-established companies like lululemon, Herschel, Adidas and others to, “create merchandise made in Miami, designed in Miami for Miami,” says Nicole Perez, the team’s Senior Manager of Retail Marketing (just four years with the team). While other teams depend on the fame of a specific player or perhaps a championship to boost merchandise sales, Miami’s brand stands on its own.
The collaborative process includes an in-house design team that not only develops the unique apparel but any visual branding, as well. The banners that fly outside FTX Arena, the pregame introduction video, and taglines on any Heat broadcast, are all designed by the same group. “What sets our approach apart from anyone else in the NBA is not just our ability to execute, but we’ve fully recognized the opportunity not to just create another uniform and put it out there and really hope that people like it, but build a solid business around it,” says Jennifer Alvarez, Senior Vice President of Brand and Chief Creative Officer, now in her 18th year with the Heat. “That’s what teams aren’t willing to do. We buy it and we invest in it because we know that the retail opportunity is there. [We] build a creative direction for the campaign and make our fans fall in love with the story.”
When the marketing team made the choice to step away from Miami’s immensely popular “Vice” merchandise, there was concern with how to write a sequel to a thriving bestseller. “We were nervous,” says a laughing Alvarez, “How do you go from king-of-the-hill to present something that’s so different? There was a whole contingent of fans that wanted “Vice” to be our permanent identity.” And so the team’s outside-the-box approach was to produce something that was both visually appealing but also provided an opportunity for fans to customize jerseys in a way that had never been done before: Miami’s “Mashup” jerseys.
Miami Heat employees customizing jerseys in-house in the team’s warehouse.
Unveiled during the 2021-22 season, “Mashup” allowed fans to choose number styles from different eras in Miami Heat history. Thousands of unique combinations allowed fans to be fully immersed in the design process, whether they shop at the team’s online store, at FTX Arena (another unique experience where arriving fans can custom build any jersey and have it ready by the time the game ends, delivered by conveyor belt in a glass-enclosed workshop named “The Lab.”), or any of their brick-and-mortar outlets. “It was so different and vibrant,” says Alvarez, “but it matched Vice’s energy, and our fans totally leaned into it as well. We surpassed our retail goals. Our expectations for digital engagement. It was a total success.”
Success is nothing new for McCullough and his group. They were the first retail team to be included in the NBA Business hall-of-fame. They have won seven “Team of the Year” awards as the best-selling franchise in the NBA, an honor no other team has won more than once. They have remained one of the top-selling teams in the league. Regardless of who wears their jerseys on the court. Whether the team wins or loses. And even through a league-wide shutdown in 2020.
It was just before the NBA interrupted their season in March of that year when the team started their latest innovation – the warehouse – even as the rest of the league was seemingly at a standstill. Anticipating the change in retail ahead of anyone else, Montero and the team recognized that they could either wait to see if sales returned to the previous status quo or to try something new. “We had the lease already locked up, and as soon as we could, we kept moving forward,” he says. “And we’re glad that we did.”
Past a security checkpoint and a few designated office spaces, Montero proudly opens the door to the production facility. A call center with customer service representatives can take orders by phone, or answer questions and “connect with fans.” A loading bay has the ability to handle shipping to all corners of the world or, after partnering with DoorDash, to someone in town to watch a game who wants to wear a unique jersey for the experience. “We can take your order by phone or online and have it shipped to you that same day,” says Montero.
Thousands of boxes and bins line dozens of shelves in Miami’s one-of-a-kind production facility.
Dozens of shelves lined with blank jerseys, shorts and other items fill thousands of square feet. Boxes marked “BUTLER” or “HERRO” sit waiting to be opened by as many as 55 onsite employees. Next to bin after bin of number patches are the machines that customize each jersey with pinpoint precision. “We had to preorder the numbers, tens of thousands of them,” says McCullough, “but we knew we’d wind up using all of them and then some. That’s how much we believe in what we’re doing.”
It’s a commitment of both time and money, spent on machines, apparel and salary, but it’s backed by a proven rate of success, the support of the front office’s top decision makers and the stability that is a rare luxury across the NBA or anyone ever – changing enterprise.
It’s a luxury that McCullough appreciates, and understands why other franchises simply can’t duplicate what Miami has been able to do so well over the years. “It takes a long time and dedication,” he says. “We’re built for this, to execute in a way other teams can’t. We have retail. We have broadcasts. We have creative. We have business communications, game operations and our digital marketing…we have one big collective voice because we have all those functions in one place.”
As for what’s next, McCullough won’t specify other than to reiterate that this year’s success won’t define the team, any more than the “Vice” apparel line did. “Everyone in this room is a really good storyteller,” he says. “We’ll exhale for a second, and then turn our attention to next year. We’re all going to have to work to start figuring out how to craft that narrative. We’ll have a completely different story next year and it has to top this one. We take pride in that. Every year has to be better than the last.
.