It's not just the MSU men's basketball team or the student body that felt like Friday's first-round loss to tournament Cinderella George Mason was a letdown.
Local East Lansing stores planning for big MSU merchandise sales and restaurants expecting huge turnouts for Spartan tournament games in the later rounds are feeling the effects of the Spartans' second first-round exit in the last three years.
"We're not even doing 5 to 10 percent of what we did last year," said Stacey Renfrow, assistant buyer of Spartan Bookstore, located in the International Center. "Our sales definitely depend on the team's success.
"We're a basketball school, and people are always itching to get their hands on the latest gear once any major MSU sport makes it into the championship."
Jay Ford, merchandising manager of Ned's Bookstore, 135 E. Grand River Ave., shares the same view.
"The farther the team goes, the more we sell," Ford said. "Sales usually spike when men's basketball reaches the Sweet 16. Unfortunately, that's not the case this year."
Although Ford refused to release his sales statistics, he said they were substantially lower than last year.
When both the men's and women's MSU basketball teams advanced to the Final Four last March, Renfrow saw a noticeable surge in purchases.
Renfrow added that overall merchandise sales for the bookstore increased about 35 percent during the duration of last year's NCAA basketball tournament.
"Last year we killed as far as sales go," she said.
With the MSU hockey team winning the 2006 CCHA playoff title and women's basketball making strides into the Sweet 16 bracket, Renfrow feels good about future sales — if both teams can get far in both of their respective tournaments.
"I've been getting calls about hockey merchandise ever since they wrapped it up in the CCHA," Renfrow added when mentioning the high demand for CCHA playoff champion locker room hats. "Our phones and Web sites have been very busy."
Renfrow, who's been working at the Spartan Bookstore for six years, compared last year's March Madness with the fall and spring rush to buy textbooks.
"Both are similar with the time constraints to sell the merchandise and the amount of foot traffic in one area," Renfrow said. "We have to sell virtually all of our championship gear over a week's period before the hype dies down."
At Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar, 360 Albert Ave., general manager Aaron Weiner expects no lull in business during the tournament, even with the Spartans' early first-round exit.
According to Weiner, hundreds of patrons still show up, and the restaurant still fills to it's capacity with every tournament game.
"It's definitely less subdued now that men aren't in it, but that doesn't stop people from coming in and enjoying the atmosphere," Weiner said.
Weiner still remembers the anticipation and long lines snaking around the restaurant's front door last year. The Sweet Sixteen matchup with Duke drew the biggest crowd.
"We opened at 11, and were filled up by 11:15," Weiner recalled. "It was just wild. People just packed the place and were there all day watching the games."
