VIERA, Fla. – Who’s really profiting when you buy your favorite local school’s t-shirt at one of the big chain stores?
In Brevard County, the district said its schools are missing out on money because third party vendors who sell the merchandise to the big box stores are reaping most of the profits.
Your Viera Community Correspondent James Sparvero found out the district is taking new legal action against these companies it said to put more money back in schools.
“What we wanna do is take our logos back,” school board chairman Matt Susin said.
Susin told Sparvero the district is trademarking its school logos, so it just sent cease and desist letters to three companies that profit from merchandise sales.
The district said these long-standing, unauthorized third-party contracts to use logos date back a couple of decades but never went through proper district approval.
Susin said they’ve hurt school boosters.
“The trailers that are normally next to the football games and stuff like that have disappeared because it’s easier for families to go purchase it at Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens, and all that stuff, Publix, even,” he said.
Susin said schools will decide how they want their merchandise sold now.
“They can actually be able to make the choice to go sell with Walmart’s and stuff like that, but it has to be the decision of the school and then approved by the superintendent and the board,” he said.
Sparvero asked if the companies should worry the district might be putting them out of business.
“No, we’ve noticed that they’ll be OK,” Susin answered. “They’ve got contracts with other districts and everything else.”