Team Insight

BSN Sports Acquires Two Team Dealers Early 2021 saw the contin- ued growth of BSN Sports as it added two venerable inde- pendent team dealers. First, BSN Sports acquired Shively Sporting Goods, based in Louisville, KY. Founded by Bob Flanders in 1968, Shively's was the largest independent sporting goods dealer in Kentucky. Flanders' children, Trisha Morrison and Mike Flanders, will join BSN along with its Louisville-based sales and customer service teams. Shively is liquidating its retail store. More recently, BSN Sports acquired Sports Plus, based in Tullahoma, TN, and its owner Joe Barstad has joined the company. Barstad had owned and operated Sports Plus since founding the business in 1997 and he received the 2019 Tullahoma Citizen of the Year award in recognition of this commitment to the com- munity. As part of Barstad's transition to BSN Sports, Sports Plus will close. Trigon Sports Acquires Practice Partner Trigon Sports has acquired the assets, supply chain and customer base of Practice Partner, located in Wilmington, NC. The merged business will be operating in Memphis, TN. Practice Partner was founded in 1982 by Joseph Rajacich, a father of two Little League ball players, who saw the need for a better way to practice at home. Under the leadership of his sons, Alex and Andrew, the Practice Partner group of products expanded into a full line of team sports training aids. Gill/Porter Adds Crown Sports Sales Crown Sports Sales and Don Leonard have been named to represent Gill Athletics and Porter Athletic in North Carolina and South Carolina. "We value our network of team sales reps and know Don can effectively support you and your school custom- ers," Gill wrote in a message to team dealers in announc- ing the early-2021 move. "We respect Don's hands-on approach to brand represen- tation. He is a great fit with our inside sales and service group and reflects our mission to "empower coaches with innovative equipment." Red Eye Elephant Reviving Kren Bat The Kren Bat Company, founded in 1913 and which sold an estimated five million bats from 1913 until 1953, has been purchased by the Red Eye Elephant Group. The new owner plans to relaunch the brand in Spring 2022, with some bats to preview this year. Red Eye is controlled by the Kreindler family, which a l s o o w n s a n d m a n a g e s MPowered Baseball, a 16-year- old diversified baseball hard gear company. The purchase includes the brand, intellectual property, trademarks, a trove of marketing, specialized bat models and a small core of cur- rent customers. Founded by Joseph Kren, an Austrian immigrant with a pen- sion for the wood trade and an appreciation for the game of baseball, the company has provided bats to a Who's Who of Baseball Hall of Famers that includes Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Mel Ott and Honus Wagner. The company's original turning equipment is in the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with several Kren bats that were used by stars of that day. Kaplan Named OMG President I n d u s t r y v e t e r a n M a t t Kaplan has been appointed as the first president at OrderMyGear (OMG), where he will lead OMG's global sales organization, account man- agement, brand partnerships and marketing in this newly created role. Under his leader- ship for the past three years, Kaplan, who previously spent 16 years at Under Armour, has helped grow OMG's client base by more than 50 percent while expanding into new markets and securing large enterprise partnerships in the Promotional Products and Team Sporting Goods categories. "I am humbled and incred- ibly excited to lead this e x c e p t i o n a l t e a m , " s a y s Kaplan. "We are focused on providing new solutions to help all of our clients grow while delivering world-class customer service." n Mixed News For Team Sports During A Pandemic Year Americans started strong, stopped everything when COVID-19 hit and then pursued pandemic- acceptable sports and fitness activities as the year progressed, according to the SFIA's recently released Annual Topline Participation Report. Unfortunately, that meant good news for individual activities but not for team sports. The report measured the participation rates of all Americans, ages six and above, tracking 120 sport, fitness and outdoor activities. In addition, this year's report features a special section: COVID-19 Effect on Participation. Individual sports such as tennis, golf, running, hiking, skateboarding and surfing thrived in 2020. Helping to drive growth was the ability to take part in these activities outdoors and socially distant. Conversely, team sports, which do not lend themselves to social distancing, struggled to maintain participation. Making the trend worse was the significant impact of school and park closures, taking away access to scholastic, travel/ competitive and recreational sports. However, SFIA's trend analysis suggests a substantial amount of informal team sports activity, such as backyard play, did take place. To this end, basketball and ultimate Frisbee recorded increases in core participation rates. In all, the report indicates that Americans stayed fairly active, but not with the same frequency and avidity as in pre-pandemic times. Americans searched out pandemic-appropriate activities where they could, with varying degrees of success and sustainability. n 34 Team Insight ~ March/April 2021 teaminsightmag.com END ZONE

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