MEMBER SPOTLIGHT NOW
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Dan Sullivan
President, Temple’s Sporting Goods, Bettendorf, Iowa
Still Going Strong After 93 Years
Sports Culture in the Quad Cities
Like most small businesses that have been around for a while,
It has been obvious to us for years how youth club sports is growing
it’s no secret the ability to constantly change and improve both
around the country and the Quad Cities (Bettendorf and Davenport,
processes and product offerings has resulted in our longevity. Over
Iowa; Moline and Rock Island, Illinois) is no different. We now service
the last 10 years, we have made significant investments in both
several club volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer and basketball
technology and equipment to serve our customers more efficiently.
programs and even offer exclusive fan gear in our retail store for
Our 10,000-square foot production facility can turn out high volumes
our clubs. We have found club sports to be much more lucrative
of screen printing, embroidery and now Direct-to-Garment apparel,
than the high school business and do not see that slowing down
bags and headwear, which has helped maintain our service standards
for years to come.
with the tremendous growth of our web-store program.
Moving Across the Mississippi River The majority of our customer base had been on the Iowa side of the river so when the chance came to move a retail operation to the new TBK Sports complex campus in Bettendorf in 2018 we did not hesitate. Since the team office had already been moved several years back to our Clinton, Iowa showroom and warehouse it didn’t make financial sense to keep a retail location in downtown Moline (Illinois). We took the opportunity to update our retail experience
COVID’s Challenges The immediate challenge was keeping our 23-plus employees working. We were able to do that for the most part through a combination of “work from home” team members and being careful with contact for the team members that needed to be on hand. The second challenge was to figure out where sales were going to come from since sports came to a screeching halt. Our retail manager in Bettendorf was able to work customers through our online store and as the summer progressed was able to
for customers at the new location and it has really worked out well.
allow customers into the store on a limited basis. He even ran a
NSGA Members Since 1964
part, however, the bulk of our sales during the first part of the
NSGA has done great advocacy work for our industry but the two
pandemic came from our corporate customers. We were able
areas our team benefits from most are the valuable research
to run employee support apparel programs for a few national
reports the organization puts out along with the up-to-date industry
accounts like Home Depot and Nestle along with several regional
news via the NSGA SCOREBOARD E-Newsletter.
and local food and beverage operations.
hugely successful outdoor patio sale in early July. For the most
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