Shaun Hagglund opened the first Fan HQ at Ridgedale in 2009, offering a mix of Minnesota team apparel and memorabilia. A fan above all, Hagglund had met several players and agents while growing his personal memorabilia collection, and had subsequently built fan websites for several players. So when he started selling jerseys and other gear at Fan HQ, he knew his best marketing move was to bring players into the store.

“We are one degree of separation from [our customers’] favorite players,” he says.

Licensed team apparel drives Fan HQ’s sales; merchandise is driven by which sports are in season. Today, the chain has three outposts: St. Cloud has a collector focus and sells more memorabilia, while Ridgedale and Eden Prairie are go-tos for fans to pick up a jersey, T-shirt or hat on the way to a game.

The popularity of the team is crucial in driving sales, says Hagglund, as is the popularity of individual players. “If a player gets traded, we try to fail fast, so to speak. There’s no point to me hanging onto a Christian Ponder jersey two years later.”

When teams reach the playoffs, limited-edition gear sells well before home games, but its shelf life is short—even championship apparel and accessories sales go sour in a matter of weeks.

With 75 percent of Fan HQ’s sales coming from apparel, Hagglund says Goldy’s Locker Room and Scheels, which also sell licensed team jerseys and shirts, are his “day-in and day-out competitors.” But he also faces fierce competition from other retailers when booking athletes for promotional appearances. Not only do athlete signings bring out customers, they create buzz on social media and can snag media attention.

“We’re competing for a real narrow group of athletes because they have to be in Minnesota and they have to get popular, they have to be hot at a particular time and there’s only a limited number of people on each of the teams that can really bring out the crowd that you want to bring out.”

For the 2015 season, Hagglund negotiated an exclusivity agreement for Viking Stefon Diggs to sign autographs only at Fan HQ stores. “You want to distinguish yourself from your competition,” he says, “and that’s one way we do it.”

Most of the store’s autographed merchandise comes from in-store appearances or directly from players, including game-used gear, but Hagglund occasionally purchases from reputable collectors and wholesalers who can provide provenance. The store offers an authenticity guarantee on everything it sells.

“There’s sort of this stigma to the industry or the hobby that there are so many fakes out there,” he says. “It’s the case with certain players—Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio—but your everyday Twins fan isn’t going to run into a ton of fake autographs; maybe Kirby Puckett. The fact of the matter is there’s not a ton of money to be made faking the autographs that we sell. Nobody’s getting rich off fake Michael Cuddyer stuff.”

—Megan Wiley