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Goetz says he's no longer seeing major issues related to inventory shortages, but a newer challenge is more vendors start- ing to sell direct. Online also continues to challenge the retail side across both baseball and soball. "e trick is to get people into our store and then have them purchase here rather than online," says Goetz. "We feel that we give superior service and knowledge to online sellers, but the customer still seems to like the convenience of having items arrive at their porch, even if they have to return their purchases. We are trying to incentivize people to buy in our store by giving coupons or doing league pant distributions." Goetz is uncertain if diamond sports will continue to capture youth's attention. "For baseball/softball to start to grow I think MLB needs to make investment in grassroots efforts. Making the game faster and more exciting would help keep athletes in the game." A friend of his, David Klein of Legends Baseball, has come up with a game called Speedball, that speeds up the action and gives kids seven to nine at bats per game rather than the typical two or three. "Ideas like that should not be ignored, but rather promoted as a way to get kids excited about playing," he says. At Performance Team Sports in Miami, FL, baseball and soball are still the deal- er's biggest spring sports, with few signs of other sports emerging to steal participants. According to account manager Chris Merlo, "Both these sports are year-round here with the weather and growing interest in youth travel ball." Travel baseball is driving its growth in dia- mond sports. Categories seeing the strongest growth for the in baseball include practice gear and apparel, while individual items such as bats and gloves that are increasingly being purchased at retail or online sites are downtrending. "e bulk of our baseball business comes in the caps and player package type gear," he reports. Inventory shortages continue to be a challenge, although teams are increasingly open to apparel product from brands such as Alleson, Champro and SanMar. "Customers have accepted getting generic brands quickly in the Amazon era over waiting for a brand name such as Adidas or Under Armour." SportStop, based in Little Rock, AR, contin- ues to see baseball rank as its largest spring sport when all levels of play are combined. "We've seen growth in baseball at the Little League level, while the numbers in soball seem to be stagnant," says VP James Rodgers. SportStop is investing more resources into its online team stores, while business with local baseball leagues has also seen an uptick coming out of the pandemic. Growth has also come by supporting baseball and soball teams at nearby junior colleges. "Most of our college and high school teams still want high-quality, name-brand uniforms, while most of our Legion and travel teams want very good hats and pants with a cheaper jersey," says Rodgers. "And of course, we've seen a dramatic shi in the bat and glove market to online." sportstylemag.com • sportstyle July/August 2024 • 55

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