02052019 Dalyn Scores with Luxury Sports Rugs in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- Luxury Sports Rugs, a new company specializing in upscale collegiate team rugs, debuted last month at both the 2019 Sports Licensing & Tailgate Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center, and at the newly expanded Dalyn Rug showroom at Las Vegas Market.

At the ribbon cutting event for Dalyn's expanded World Market Center showroom in Building A, visitors were dazzled by a colorful, comprehensive display of Luxury Sports Rugs in a setting replete with motion seating, sports lockers, samples, point of sale materials and signage.

"This is huge:  It's blowing us away," Brian Vander Werf, regional vice president at Dalyn, told RugNews.com. "I did not think it was going to be this big of a deal. It's unbelievable: People spend more money on their animals and sports than anything," he continued, noting that World Market shoppers were ordering - with interest from both online and brick and mortar stores. Prominently displayed was a point of sale box designed to hold four 5x8 rugs; four 4x6; and a stack of 10 scatters. "It's a nice presentation because we gear the graphics to each school."

Kit White of Dalyn (center) discusses the new Luxury Sports Rug line with Cyrus Bonakchi of Cyrus Persian Rugs at Las Vegas Market. The point of sale box (left) made a big impression with buyers at World Market and the 2019 Sports Licensing & Tailgate Show.  

The new luxury brand also carved a niche among the 400 exhibitors at the annual Sports Licensing show, where a search for rugs on the exhibitor directory came up with two others in the category: Milliken for machine-made synthetic area rugs, and a company called Sports Licensing Solutions, which offers inexpensive licensed mats, rugs, and auto accessories. "We went to the show right before Las Vegas Market. Companies that manage thousands of bookstores and thousands of schools came in and said, 'I want to put a box in every store,'" Vander Werf said.

"No one is in the space with better product -- the competitors' are printed, lower-end," he explained. What sets the new Luxury Sports Rugs rugs apart is their hand-tufted plush pile construction of soft poly-acrylic yarn, and hand-carving around the school's logo and name.

Offered in four standard sizes - 20 x 30; 3'6" x 5'6"; 5' x 7'6"; and 8 'x 10' -  the rugs can also be made in custom sizes, an option for which Dalyn is the go-to source for a broad range of retailers. The rugs, which retail at $349 in 5x8, come with a high quality cotton backing, and have been photographed in casual living spaces, offices and youth bedrooms for merchandising online and in store.

"We have a great website just for Luxury Sports Rugs -- it's a separate division, a separate company." To date representing 22 college teams with officially licensed rugs featuring each school's logo and colors, Luxury Sports Rugs will be adding 62 more universities in the next 90 days. "We're going to be able to cover the country -- every state and every city," Vander Werf said.

An impressive roster of licensing partners, the 22 college team logos and colors displayed at January shows are just the beginning.

Luxury Sports Rugs are color matched to each school's specified Pantone colors, a key selling point since fans consider color critical in the purchase of licensed collegiate products.