(U-WIRE) LAWRENCE, Kan. -The Final Four will be in St. Louis, but competition for fans’ dollars begins in Lawrence.

NCAA Tournament T-shirts and other merchandise are produced to commemorate each step along the Jayhawks’ journey.

“The first day we were open after we won the Final Four, it was like a madhouse,” said Mark Trompeter, gift and clothing buyer for the KU Bookstore.

Businesses have to prepare for the rush of fans and buy accordingly. Final Four merchandise isn’t usually displayed until after the Jayhawks win their Elite Eight game.

“We buy on ‘if and when,'” Trompeter said. If the Jayhawks make it past the Elite Eight, the store will have shirts on order, he said. But if they don’t make it that far, shirts won’t be ordered, he said.

Stores buy on a contingency basis, meaning that they place an order for shirts only if the KU men’s basketball team makes it to the Final Four.

Big 12 Conference championship shirts are bought with the same plan in mind, but in smaller amounts.

Few people buy Big 12 shirts, but many buy Final Four shirts. The Sports Dome, 924 Massachusetts St., had to mark down its Big 12 shirts from $18 to $12.50, owner Brian Hoffman said.

“We only bought about two dozen Big 12 championship shirts, and only sold a few,” Hoffman said. “Buyers look at it as ‘Who really cares about the Big 12?'”

Some students said it was too expensive to buy shirts for the Big 12 championship and each round of the tournament.

“I don’t want to waste my money on a Big 12 shirt,” freshman Lisa Kauffman said. “We don’t make it to the Final Four every year.”

Freshman Jared Johanning said he would wait to see how far the Jayhawks went in the tournament before he would buy a shirt.

“I want to get a Final Four shirt because it’s the Big Dance,” he said. “I can find money for that.”

Procrastination purchases such as Johanning’s make it hard on stores to estimate orders.

“We don’t sell a lot of Big 12 or Sweet 16 shirts,” said Toni Retonde, store manager for Jayhawk Bookstore. “It’s funny because, often, we see people buy backwards.”

People will often wait, and if the University makes it to the Final Four, people will buy the shirts they have neglected to that point, Retonde said. Customers will buy a Big 12 championship shirt, a Sweet 16 and a Elite Eight shirt once the team has made it to the Final Four, she said.