By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

At PSI 20/20 headquarters, marketing development manager Matthew Hahn (left) and CEO Forrest Fairley show some of the merchandise they supply to athletic teams and for events, including the Olympics. (Steven Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

When millions of bobblehead dolls hit the closet floors of the children who once coveted them, PSI 20/20 Promotions Inc. wants to be there with the next national craze.

Moving into the sports merchandising field only four years ago, the company now provides promotional products for more than three dozen sports teams and has signed contracts topping $30 million in the next three years.

"We're constantly trying to find the next bobblehead," chief executive officer Forrest Fairley said. "We're doing more than just selling a trinket and trash product. Clients want better stuff, and they want unique stuff."

The "next big thing" PSI is pushing is nested dolls - smaller figures inside larger ones - featuring sports figures, he said.

The company is part of a national market that exploded throughout the 1990s, but saw sales fall slightly during the last two years as companies - including sports teams - cut back on giveaway products in a tight economy.

Total sales of promotional products fell about 5.6 percent to $15.6 billion in 2002, but online sales and sales of the top product categories increased, according to the trade group Promotional Products Association International.

PSI officials remember one of the first sports products they peddled, the Thunder Sticks that a national television audience saw Anaheim Angels fans using to great effect during the World Series last fall. The company's first pro sports contract was with the National Football League's New Orleans Saints.

"I bet we called 108 times to the Saints before they called us back," president Scott Staff said. "Now we're signing with teams and leagues right and left."

PSI - its stands for Pro Sports International - isn't in that position anymore. Located off Red Bank Road in Madisonville, the company is one of two providers of promotional merchandise for the U.S. Olympic Committee. And it's trying to spread its reach even further this year, in talks to provide merchandise for fan Web sites touting National Basketball Association prodigies Yao Ming and LeBron James.

Locally, PSI is the licensed merchandiser for the Tall Stacks festival here this fall and for University of Cincinnati athletics, as well as the Atlantic 10 conference that includes Xavier University.

The firm is trying to fill a niche for professional sports teams that might spend as much as $1 million a year on promotional merchandise, but don't want to deal with dozens of vendors, Fairley said.

The company has tried to mix in creative promotional work with the merchandising. And it will also sponsor many of its teams.

"You've got a marketing person who has so many other things to work on," Fairley said.

As part of the Olympic contract, awarded in 2001, PSI will market licensed Olympic products to more than 75 official U.S. team sponsors, including giants Kodak, McDonald's and Delta Air Lines.

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com