{"id":2088068,"date":"2025-10-13T16:33:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2088068"},"modified":"2025-10-13T16:33:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:33:05","slug":"company-thrives-under-bruce-springsteen-rock-acts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/company-thrives-under-bruce-springsteen-rock-acts\/","title":{"rendered":"Company thrives under Bruce Springsteen, rock acts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>This story originally appeared in the Asbury Park Press\u00a0on Oct. 6, 1985.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The business of Bruce Springsteen spawns more dollars than just record and tape sales and concert tickets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">To a company in San Franciso called Winterland Productions, the name, the face and the body of Bruce spell $15 million in memorabilia sales from the two-month American leg of his &#8220;Born in the U.S.A.&#8221; world tour, which closed last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Springsteen fans spend an average $8 on merchandise at each concert, choosing from among $22 sweatshirts, $16 baseball jerseys, $13 T-shirts and $8 programs, buttons and posters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Winterland has exclusive rights to the rock star&#8217;s name, logo and image. In exchange for that exclusivity, Springsteen got an up-front advance for the right to market his group&#8217;s merchandise, and he earns a sales royalty on every item sold. Advances are based on a negotiated artist&#8217;s royalty, which industry sources say is usually 25 percent to 35 percent of gross sales.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-3 right-3 size-10 md:size-[50px] lg:inset-0 lg:size-full lg:bg-transparent\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-0 right-0 rounded-full bg-white p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-white\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed inset-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-white hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p>The Asbury Park Press published a special Bruce Springsteen section on August 18, 1985.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Springsteen&#8217;s tour is unquestionably the single largest merchandise grossing tour in the history of rock n&#8217; roll,&#8221; said Winterland&#8217;s executive vice president and chief operating officer Donald Hunt. He projects it will put Winterland&#8217;s sales for the year ending next June in the range of $70 million, compared with $40 million last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Although Springsteen is now the company&#8217;s best seller, Winterland has been a concessionaire to rock stars for more than a decade. The company was launched in 1974 when founder Dell Furano set up a card table at the now-defunct Winterland Arena in San Francisco. At the first concert, featuring the Grateful Dead, about a dozen T-shirts were sold.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Today, Winterland is big business, with 250 employees and a client roster that includes Chicago, Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Hall &amp; Oates, Jefferson Starship, Madonna, Tina Turner and Sting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hunt joined the business in 1977 to manage the financial and operations sides of the business, while Furano concentrated on making deals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Furano and Hunt then took over the T-shirt printing business that had been done by subcontractors. The move improved quality control and profit margins, and allowed Winterland to grow beyond its rock n&#8217; roll roots. Corporate accounts include Apple Computer, Levi Strauss and Bank of America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As rock stage acts grew more lavish, banks became increasingly dependent on advance merchandise royalties to mount their road shows. The T-shirts wind up funding the tours, Hunt explained. Jefferson Starship, for instance, receives advances of up to $250,000 for a two-month to three-month tour, and that can take care of travel expenses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Since the larger the act, the bigger the royalties, no one gets a better deal from Winterland than client No. 1. And he&#8217;s characteristically grateful: the poster in the lobby of the company&#8217;s headquarters is autographed &#8220;To Winterland Productions &#8211; thanks so much. Bruce Springsteen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><em>This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.app.com\/story\/entertainment\/music\/2025\/10\/13\/bruce-springsteen-company-thrives-selling-merchandise\/86077926007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bruce Springsteen: Company thrives selling merchandise;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Bruce Springsteen: Company thrives selling merchandise<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This story originally appeared in the Asbury Park Press\u00a0on Oct. 6, 1985. The business of Bruce Springsteen spawns more dollars than just record and tape sales and concert tickets. To a company in San Franciso called Winterland Productions, the name, the face and the body of Bruce spell $15 million in memorabilia sales from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2088069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[28851,328643,393475,341813,393477,393476,393474],"class_list":["post-2088068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-concert-tickets","tag-donald-hunt","tag-jefferson-starship","tag-merchandise","tag-winterland-arena","tag-winterland-productions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Company-thrives-under-Bruce-Springsteen-rock-acts.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2088068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2088070,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088068\/revisions\/2088070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2088069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2088068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2088068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2088068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}