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baseball and soball arena. When we better focus on providing products specifically geared for our clientele, sales have grown." Piesco Sporting Goods, based in North Easton, MA, a suburb of Boston, has seen its baseball and fast-pitch soball business shrink to be- tween 15 to 20 percent of its full-year business. Owner David Piesco says that baseball was as high as 30 percent at one point, with the decline attributed to generally less interest in the sport over the years and efforts by his team to cover a wider range of sports at the youth and school level. More recently, the arrival of travel leagues has led to the demise of Legion and other town leagues the dealer used to service. Piesco is still upbeat about prospects for baseball and soball, believing both sports will benefit from their return to the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028. He is also encouraged by Major League Baseball's grassroots efforts to grow the same. "Major League Baseball is recognizing they need to make some changes to accommodate for this much larger competition for time," he says. "Whether it's other sports, extracur- ricular activities, video games or whatever, there's always competing items for time. You need to figure out a way to reach people at a younger age." Team Sporting Goods, Marshfield, WI, has seen its baseball and soball business rebound smartly from the pandemic. According to co- owner Dave Romnek, local schools and travel programs represent its healthiest growth areas in diamond sports. "It is getting stronger for travel leagues every year, but, other than the travel team growth, our sales have stayed a pretty consistent," he says. Growth has been driven by online stores, led by items such as caps, socks, team or fan clothing, and backpacks. Bats have been trend- ing down. Soball is seeing similar trends as baseball. Online growth is also being boosted by increasing demand for personalized items, such as player names and numbers. While some lead times are longer than pre-pandemic timelines, inventory issues have largely abated. "Our biggest challenge is going to be staffing and dealing with related very high costs as well as high shipping rates," says Romnek. "We do a lot of reconditioning and that has always been a challenge, but with increased costs in parts, labor and shipping it has been very challenging to price properly." Mathews Team Sports, in Franklin, TN, still sees diamond sports driving its spring busi- ness. Tate Mathews, president and CEO, says that baseball is the bigger business of the two because baseball squads in his area generally have bigger budgets and larger roster sizes. e dealer does the bulk of its business with baseball in uniforms and player packs. "Everybody lis weights as a team and there's not a baseball team that doesn't do a player pack where they want them in the same T-shirt and short in the weight room," he points out. "A lot of them will buy two T-shirts and two shorts, then the hoodie, the pants with the dugout fleece, the BP [batting practice] jackets, the dugout jackets, etc." He estimates that Mathews Team Sports now does more volume in player packs than uniforms, caps and baseballs combined. e dealer primarily works with middle schools and high schools, with a small uni- versity business. Mathews says the positives of working with schools is baseball coaches have been conditioned to order early. "e thing about baseball coaches is you have to custom order hats. It's gotten better, but for so long, you've had to order custom hats so far in advance," he says. Mathews credits Founder Sport Group, the parent of Alleson Athletic and other uniform brands, and Champro for upgrading their sublimation techniques to bring an elevated product to market. "What they've done is they just made it better for everybody." Challenges still include securing some inventory due to supply chain disruption, including batting helmets this past season, but he's confident diamond sports remains a growth opportunity outside extraordinary circumstances such as another pandemic. "e great thing about team sports is it's always going to be here," says Mathews. "As long as there are schools, there's always going to be teams and they're always going to need stuff." n teaminsightmag.com July/August 2024 ~ Team Insight • 19 w w w . P r o N i n e . c o m • 440-349-3500

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