Team Insight

W hen the calendar flipped to 2023 a few weeks ago it marked the completion of 30 years of me cov- ering the sporting goods and team sports industry for a variety of trade magazines, most of which don't exist any longer. When I attended my first NSGA Management Conference and Team Dealer Summit in Arizona in 1992 the world of sporting goods was vastly different than it is today. Permit me a bit of nostalgia. First thing: at photo of me is taken from an mid-1992 copy of Sporting Goods Dealer, the magazine that first brought me to the world of sporting goods. Looking good in my Starter jersey holding a wooden bat! at issue provided a preview of the 1992 NSGA World Sports Expo, which featured 1500 exhibitors in 1.2 mil- lion-square feet of space, attracting some 85,000 attendees from 60 countries. Back then there were four thriving team dealer buying groups — Sports Inc., headed by Don Pfau, Nation's Best Sports run by Herb Biddle, Team Athletic Goods led by Trevor Swangard and Athletic Dealers of America, helmed by Don Sonandres. ere was no BSN Sports as it exists today, but there were many team dealers and sporting goods stores with family names above the doors – Oshman's, Chick's, Koenig's, Kesslers, Modell's – that no longer exist. And there was an up- start called e Sports Authority and a small chain in upstate New York called Dick's Sporting Goods that showed some promise. Other industry veterans will fondly recall the two major trade shows we counted on every year. In addition to the NSGA World Sports Expo, the massive Super Show in Atlanta every February meant four days of meetings from 7 a.m. breakfasts through midnight at the Gold Club. Many of the brands that dominated those two shows are long gone. It hurts to see Starter reduced to a downstairs brand at Walmart. Nike was already the big dog, challenged by Reebok and Adidas in America. We know who won that game. But the real pleasure of three decades covering the business of sporting goods has been witnessing the advances the survivors and the upstarts have brought to the game. A little brand called Under Armour didn't show up until 1996, but then changed the way athletes looked and dressed. e dotcom revolution brought online ordering and connectivity to the paper-and-pencil world of team sports selling. In the magazine game we have evolved as well. Back in the early '90s there were six thriving weekly and monthly publications. Now, not so many. I have been fortunate to have played a role in the evolution of the trade press from print to the world of digi- tal publishing and social media. I can say for sure that we won't have to wait another 30 years for the next revo- lution. We are in a business that relishes change and eagerly adopts it — well, most team dealers do. Team Insight will continue to evolve and adapt as well as the only trade magazine dedicated to the team sports business. And I will keep trying to make sure all of the words are spelled rite. n THIRTY YEARS OF COVERING TEAM SPORTS ... AND COUNTING The real pleasure of three decades covering sporting goods and the team sports business has been witnessing the advances the survivors and the upstarts have brought to the game. TEAM TALK / MICHAEL JACOBSEN 6 • Team Insight ~ January/February 2023 teaminsightmag.com STAHLS.COM | 800.4.STAHLS SHOP SIMSTITCH® STYLES stahls.com/stitched-looks EMBROIDERED LOOKS WITH ONLY A HEAT PRESS SAVE TIME AND STITCHES WITH SIMSTITCH® TI0123 • Letters & Numbers • Pre-Spaced Names & Numbers • Any Word. Any Way.™ • 3D Mega Greek™ • Custom SimStitch® SIMSTITCH® FOR ANY TEAM

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