The Oklahoma Sooners and Fanatics have partnered to open The Sooner Shop, the flagship retail store for OU Athletics, located on the west side of Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. The Sooner Shop opens to the public Friday, April 5 at 9 a.m. CT.
Fanatics, which currently runs e-commerce for the Sooners through its operation of shop.soonersports.com, will use the updated space to create a seamless omnichannel retail experience for Sooners fans on game day and beyond, giving them consistency between items and a significantly expanded assortment of quality products regardless of shopping online, on mobile or in store.
Shortly after the end of the fall 2018 semester, Fanatics began demolition on the roughly 19,000-square-foot retail space previously occupied by the OU Bookstore. The next three months were spent completely remodeling the existing footprint to transform it into the showpiece store that exists today. Major projects included removing the drop tile ceiling, tearing up the carpeted floor and reconfiguring the lower level space for additional Sooners merchandise to be housed and displayed.
“When you partner on a fan shop with an industry expert like Fanatics, you know they are going to deliver a great product,” said Joe Castiglione, OU vice president and athletics director. “What the team at Fanatics created in The Sooner Shop is above and beyond anything we could have hoped for. I’m excited for our fans to see the transformation the space has undergone and experience first-hand this state-of-the-art retail store. We’re confident there’s nothing else quite like it in the country.”
