INSIGHTS NOW

NSGA Report Provides Insight into Baseball Equipment for Dealers, Brands

By Nick Rigitano

NSGA Director of Insights and Analysis

Team dealers often face the difficult task of evaluating whether to expand or contract their product offerings and which brands they should carry. To make decisions even more difficult, the baseball market is highly saturated with an abundance of brands and products. To give team dealers a better idea of the brands being carried, along with their ratings for certain attributes for baseball equipment and apparel, NSGA conducted the Team Dealer Trends: Brand Ratings Survey in the summer of 2021. Whether an organization is an existing team dealer, a start-up dealer, or a retailer considering the addition of a team component, the resulting insights can aid in understanding the current landscape of the baseball segment. This includes competition levels serviced, brands carried for select categories and how those brands measure up against others based on certain attributes. This report can also be used by manufacturers to get a better idea of where they stand with their dealer customers.

Team Dealer Trends: Brand Ratings

Baseball

Here is a glance at the information contained in the report:

Baseball Sales Overview

This section provides an overview of baseball sales among dealers for the most recent season in 2021. Included is information on the median number of baseball teams serviced by competition level (high school, college, rec league, etc.) and the percentage of baseball sales attributed to each level, along with the percentage of total baseball sales among respondents broken out by product category. According to the study, the recreational level was the most-serviced level with team dealer respondents servicing a median of 30 teams at this level followed by high school with 25 teams.

Baseball Brands Carried

This portion of the report examines the average number of brands carried by dealers for each of the nine product categories displayed in Figure 1, as well as the percentages of brands being carried by dealer respondents for the given categories. As shown in Figure 1, bats and helmets were the categories in which dealers carried the most brands on average (4.9 and 4.3 respectively). Dealers carried an average of 4.2 brands for the categories of gloves/mitts and uniforms, followed by 4 brands carried for field equipment. An average of 3.9 brands were carried for catcher’s equipment and performance apparel while 3.8 brands were carried for baseballs. Not surprisingly, dealers carried the least amount of brand options for baseball cleats/ shoes (3.2) given the limited number of brands offering these products through the dealer channel. This section also includes a look at the percentages of respondents carrying given brands for the product categories surveyed. Figure 1

Figure 2

Baseball Brand Ratings

The final section of the report explores the ratings given to 31 baseball brands by dealers carrying them, based on five different brand attributes:

• value for the price • timely delivery • product innovation • brand-name recognition • sell-through An overall attribute score is also given for each brand based on their average scores among these five categories. This section also includes ratings of brands carried by dealers based on overall feelings toward them based on a 5-point scale (5=very positive, 3=neutral, 1=very negative) as shown in Figure 2. SanMar received the top spot in this category after dealers carrying the brand rated them most positively (4.50 average). Next were Founder Sport Group (4.45) and Champro (4.42). Rounding out the top five were Augusta Sportswear Brands (4.38) and Jaypro (4.21). The report is available to NSGA retailer and team dealer members as a complimentary benefit and can be downloaded at the Research Offerings section of the NSGA website (www.nsga.org). Other organizations interested in obtaining the report can contact Nick Rigitano, NSGA Director of Insights and Analysis, at nrigitano@nsga. org or (847) 296-6742, ext. 1080.