M-Den in Trouble

Recently, it was announced that the U-M athletic department was switching its official retail shop from the M-Den, its long-time partner, to a newly created store called MGoBlue Shop. This caused a little bit of consternation around Ann Arbor, as the new owners are not based locally as the M-Den is.

This was the second blow for Wolverine retailers, as Steve & Barry’s lost its license to sell U-M apparel in January and closed its State Street location about a month later. I was sorry to see it go, as I bought most of my apparel there, and their prices couldn’t be beat. I mean, $7.50 for a T-shirt? So M-Den leased the location and it opened its door a few months back.

Now it appears M-Den is going to be in for a tough road the next year or so. It doesn’t appear any of the stores are going to be closing despite losing the “official” tag, as there are several other Michigan stores around Ann Arbor. But it certainly will hurt missing out on the sales from game days and from online. In fact, some stores may already be taking steps to cut their losses.

Tracy and I were at Twelve Oaks mall in Novi tonight, my first visit there in a long time. I noticed they had a M-Den store, and I thought we would stop in to see if they had any different stuff from the Briarwood location. As a matter of fact, they did – they had a section of Michigan State gear.

I was pretty annoyed at this discovery and immediately walked out. I guess because it wasn’t in Ann Arbor they don’t have to worry about psycho fans like me giving them crap. But if you are going to sell both U-M and MSU apparel, don’t use the M-Den name for your store.