Team Insight

I n the U.S., some of the most memorable moments in soccer have involved female soccer players. The U.S. has won three of the seven FIFA World Cup titles, capped off by American Carly Lloyd's hat trick in the 2015 championship game. Indeed, most of the greatest names in U.S. soccer history are women — Michelle Akers, Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain, Abby Wambach. And while there still may be more males than females playing soccer in the U.S., the girls are making the headlines. According to NFHS, girls' soccer is a top 10 sport at the high school level – fourth in terms of participation (388,339) and sixth in the number of schools (11,823). Girls' high school soccer is played in every state — the top five are California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. "We have seen an increase in girls' soccer of about 7000 participants from 2015-16 to 2016-17," reports NFHS' Theresia Wynns. Interestingly, the soccer season for its 51 high school association members covers three seasons — 26 states play girls' soccer in the fall, five in the winter and 20 in the spring. At the collegiate level, there were 27,638 females playing NCAA Division I, II or III soccer during the 2016-17 school year. Participation figures from SFIA indicate that there are 3.9 million female soccer players in the U.S., which is 33 percent of all U.S. soccer players. The most telling figure is that 63 percent of all female soccer players in the U.S. are ages 6-17. In fact, the sport is so skewed to young players that 42.6 percent of all female soccer players are in the eighth grade or lower. The demand from the female soccer player is strong and steady, for the most part, in the U.S. "When it comes to girls soccer, we sell to local rec leagues, high school teams, and travel teams," said Betsy Frey, owner, Holyoke Sporting Goods, Holyoke, MA. "Youth teams are buying cleats, socks, shinguards, shorts and practice T-shirts," she adds. "The girls' high school and travel teams will purchase the fancy uniforms from us." "We sell to girls' youth leagues and to high school teams," says Joel Dunn, a salesman at Legacy Team Sales, Ocala, FL. "The majority of our sales are uniforms — jerseys, shorts and socks. We sell a ton of soccer socks to girls." Soccer has its fair share of specialty stores, many of which also serve a diverse clientele through very active online sales. One leader is Soccer Village in Cincinnati, OH, which also reports that it sells a tone of soccer socks to girls. In fact, it features as many as 30 sock mannequins that showcase the new socks styles. "Socks are big business," reports Soccer Village president Bart Rapp. "The more colors they use to make socks, the more the girls like it," he adds. "The girls are phenomenal for helping to drive sales of fashion soccer socks." Q 30 Team Insight / March 2018 teaminsightmag.com Team dealers compete with the many specialty stores for the girls' soccer business. GIRLS' & WOMEN'S SPORTS / SOCCER KICKING IT Soccer's star power maintains its hold on young female athletes. OF NOTE ... Interestingly, soccer is slowing down at one specialty retailer who has been selling both soccer and rugby for decades. According to Matt Godek, owner of Matt Godek Rugby & Soccer Supply in Merrifield, VA, rugby is hotter in his market these days. "I sell far more rugby gear to girls than soccer uniforms, accessories and supplies," he says. "My girls' soccer business has been reduced to selling to youth soccer teams in the area and they just need the basics — uniforms, socks, shinguards, mouthguards and a few soccer balls." Godek's soccer business has suffered because of the competition from the Internet, specifically soccer.com and Amazon. "The big-picture issue that clubs and teams must understand when doing business with these big Internet- based firms is that they are good at delivering large orders, but they lack the ability to provide immediate cus- tomer service when there's an issue or a problem with one or two uni- forms," Godek says. "Teams must realize that if they need help from local retailers when there's a problem with an order, then those teams need to do more business with the local retailers, otherwise we may not be around to help. Customer service on the back-end is important, especially when you want everything to be right for your team." Godek is not alone when it comes to feeling the business pressure of the Internet, "For years, I lost out on soccer business because of catalogs," says East Valley Sports' Dennis Callison. "Now a lot of soccer teams are buying what they need on the Internet." Q BIG TIME

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