State your business: athletic industry executives talk about the present and the future. (The 3rd Annual Facilities and Equipment Buyer's Guide 2003).The athletic business, particularly when it is reliant upon high school and college athletic directors and coaches, can be fickle. The economy, participation numbers, budget restraints, customer satisfaction, and personal preference all have a lot to do with the final buying decision. And there is no one more conversant CONVERSANT. One who is in the habit of being in a particular place, is said to be conversant there. Barnes, 162. with the trends and vagaries of the business than the key executives of the sports-related companies. That said, we asked a select group of the industry leaders to "give us the business." Sports Medicine sports medicine, branch of medicine concerned with physical fitness and with the treatment and prevention of injuries and other disorders related to sports. Knee, leg, back, and shoulder injuries; stiffness and pain in joints; tendinitis; "tennis elbow"; and Chris Waldeck, VP/Marketing Cramer Products, Inc. What's the state of the market? The side that is growing is customization-providing products in team colors and customizing for first-aid kits. Things that are designed to fit specific sports needs. The trend has always been there. But over the years, the Years, The the seven decades of Eleanor Pargiter’s life. [Br. Lit.: Benét, 1109] See : Time merchandising has been getting better and better as the retailers have been getting so much better at it. We offer tape in team colors, some braces and supports in team colors, and a line of first-aid kits specific to various sports and different levels of play. What's the next great advance? As budgets are shrinking we are trying to develop and introduce products that offer a greater value. At all levels. We have expanded our ankle brace Noun 1. ankle brace - a brace worn to strengthen the ankle brace - a support that steadies or strengthens something else; "he wore a brace on his knee" line with the introduction of Active Ankle, and introduced a strapped lace-up brace called the AS1. We also have our existing braces, the T1 and T2, which are hinged braces. The AS1 allows a trainer to strap the brace on an athlete as opposed to taping him up every day. It's neat because the strapping strap·ping adj. Having a sturdy muscular physique; robust. n. 1. Straps considered as a group. 2. Material for making straps. system mimics the trainer's tape job. It's a great way to give an athlete additional support without having to pay for a tape job every day. You can buy one brace and it pays for itself in one season. Curt Mueller, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Mueller Sports Medicine Mueller Sports Medicine, Inc. is a family-owned business started in 1961 by Curt Mueller, a former University of Wisconsin-Madison men's basketball player. Early offerings such as M-Tape®, M-Wrap®, the Medi-Kit™ trainer's kit, and Quench® Mist proved to be training What's the next great advance? We are introducing a ton of new products this year. First, we are going retail with our Mueller Sports collar. We are also launching a new porous tape in our team pack. It's a heavier tape and has a higher tensile strength tensile strength Ratio of the maximum load a material can support without fracture when being stretched to the original area of a cross section of the material. When stresses less than the tensile strength are removed, a material completely or partially returns to its than our M-Tape. The porous tape is geared toward the college and professional level. High schools should continue to use the M-Tape. Mueller is going big time in the athletic supporter line with a new black jock supporter, briefs, and banana cups. The new Mueller Strap-Guard anti-concussion mouth guard (designed with a dentist) is thicker in the back, so that when it's stretched over the back molars it will provide more cushion in the mouth on impact. Lastly, we will introduce a new ankle brace, the Soft Brace, which is light weight and easier to put on and take off. Where's the business going? Female athletics and youth programs are putting more and more kids on the fields and there has also been a substantial increase of trainers. About 20 years ago you would see about 5,000 ATC ATC Air Traffic Control ATC Average Total Cost ATC Certified Athletic Trainer ATC At the Center (Hartford, Maine retreat center) ATC Applied Technology Council ATC All Things Considered trainers at a convention. Today, there are between 15,000 and 20,000! Sports Apparel Dave Doezie, Regional Sales Manager sales manager n → gerente m/f de ventas sales manager n → directeur commercial sales manager sale n → of Retail and National Sales Manager for Team Sports M.J. Soffe What's the state of the market?. I think the retail business is off a little bit. The economy has played a part in it. I think people are spending their money in other places. The institutional or team business is flat, maybe up or down just a bit. I think the team business is always going to be stronger than retail. That's why I've been trying to push Soffe to get a little more proactive in that end of it. You don't see the big ups and downs ups and downs pl.n. Alternating periods of good and bad fortune or spirits. ups and downs Noun, pl alternating periods of good and bad luck or high and low spirits that you do in retail. Parents are always going to make sure their kids are outfitted. We're a rep-driven company. All we have are independent reps. The tendency among them, since we have so many different lines, is to cherry- pick where the money is. I'm trying to get things rolling more toward team dealers--working with the reps and letting them know what we've got, what we're about, and what we can deliver. We've got a lot of colors and other sizes that a lot of manufacturers don't have. What's the next great advance? We've had a product called Dri-Release for a number of years. It's a product similar to Nike's Dri-Fit line. That's another line in which we let people catch up to us. Everybody has come out with a technical product. Dri-Release is inexpensive and different than, say, Body Armour Noun 1. body armour - armor that protects the wearer's whole body body armor, cataphract, coat of mail, suit of armor, suit of armour armet - a medieval helmet with a visor and a neck guard . We've done very well with it in the running market. It's a great product underneath shoulder pads This article is about football protective equipment. For shoulder pads in fashion, see Shoulder pads (fashion). Shoulder pads are a piece of protective equipment used in American and Canadian football. . Where's the business going? I'm a lot more familiar with the team market than I am with retail. There are not a lot of things that change, especially in the clothing end. The school districts are becoming a lot more aware of what's going on What's Going On is a record by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. Released on May 21, 1971 (see 1971 in music), What's Going On reflected the beginning of a new trend in soul music. and they're checking prices because obviously they have budget cuts, too. I think that's where the boosters and parents are' going to become a lot more involved than they have been the last couple of years. Strength & Fitness Greg Highsmith, Senior Business Director Hammer Strength/Life Fitness What's the state of the market? We've been seeing continual growth in the Hammer Strength ground base side of our business. The concept of ground base training is becoming more and more of a staple. The new concepts of ground base machines are putting them into a circuit-training environment. Just the nature of being ground base and activating all the muscles from foot to hand, especially when you move from one movement to another very quickly, provides an incredible intense workout. What's the next great advance? We've introduced a number of new ground base machines that sort of go beyond our Jammer, extending the movements to other planes of motion. In conjunction with, but not an alternative to the above, are our new cable motion technology machines. Those are selectorized machines in which the user, not the machine, defines the path of the machine. The whole area of free weights is certainly not going away. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if that means anti-technology in the gym, but there are certain staples, because of the exercise versatility and what you can do, that will always be there. Where's the business going? Over the last 10 years, even the last five, the business of strength training continues to get out in the mass market. Even in sports like tennis. Ask any tennis coach and he'll tell you that strength training has become an important part of the players' success. All of our athletes are becoming bigger, stronger, and faster than ever before. Jim Flanagan, Co-Founder/Board Member/Strength & Fitness Consultant/Distributor MedX What's the next great advance? We have just introduced at the college, pro, fitness center, and personal studio and trainer level, an isolated low-back machine called the EXL EXL Ethernet Accelerator EXL Expiration Notice (insurance) EXL Expression List EXL Extended Learning (Exercise Lumbar lumbar /lum·bar/ (lum´bar) pertaining to the loins. lum·bar adj. Of, near, or situated in the part of the back and sides between the lowest ribs and the pelvis. ). It strictly isolates by locking the pelvis, which is the technology from the medical machines. This will have a great application to help the athlete protect that area and rehabilitate re·ha·bil·i·tate v. 1. To restore to good health or useful life, as through therapy and education. 2. To restore to good condition, operation, or capacity. it at a lot less cost. The medical lumbar costs about $40,000. The EXL is around $6,000. REX REX - The original name for Restructured EXtended eXecutor. (Rotary Exercise) is an awesome machine. Imagine sitting in a chair and you have a locking device to push your knees and pelvis. It's like a locking gear. It shoves the femur femur (fē`mər): see leg. back into the pelvis where your glutes, your hip, can't rotate. The knees act like pistons. That means your glutes are in place. This now gives that person or athlete who needs to be rehabbed isolation in that area. Protective Gear Julie Nimmons, President Schutt Sports What's state of the market? I think everyone needs to be very, very careful about what they're calling "huge advancements." Unfortunately, what is going to cause a concussion in one person is very different from what is going to cause a concussion in another person. And there are absolutely no cure-alls. However, there are ways to have better fitting helmets than what we sometimes see on the field. Overall, any time you see a football player grab his faceguard and zip his helmet off, you've got a helmet that probably has not been fitted properly. I question whether that helmet has been fit properly. It's too loose. A helmet is supposed to fit snugly snug 1 adj. snug·ger, snug·gest 1. Comfortably sheltered; cozy. 2. Small but well arranged: a snug apartment. See Synonyms at comfortable. 3. a. . What's the next great advance? We offer a lot of options to get a good fit: tapered ta·per n. 1. A small or very slender candle. 2. A long wax-coated wick used to light candles or gas lamps. 3. A source of feeble light. 4. a. front sizers, different sizes and different feels to jaw pads, firm and soft, different sizes of back sizers. All of these options provide a customized fit, and we know how to do it right now. Will all of this eliminate the potential for concussions? No, there is always a potential. We have made advances in our Air line. First of all, how to use Air for fit adjustments. Even if you don't Even If You Don't is a single released by the band Ween in 2000 on Mushroom Records. Formats Enhanced CD single Includes the quicktime video of "Even If You Don't" directed by Matt Stone & Trey Parker of "South Park". pump up the air liner at all, there will always be a little bit of atmospheric pressure atmospheric pressure or barometric pressure Force per unit area exerted by the air above the surface of the Earth. Standard sea-level pressure, by definition, equals 1 atmosphere (atm), or 29.92 in. (760 mm) of mercury, 14.70 lbs per square in., or 101. in the air liner. You will not have a complete vacuum inside. The airliner does help make the helmet snug. And it does work as a helmet system. It takes the helmet shell, the helmet padding, in our case the helmet liner, and the faceguard, even the faceguard strap, and the chinstrap For the species of penguin, see . A chinstrap beard grows along the jaw / chin in a narrow line, and was fashionable from the late-18th century through the mid-19th century in Europe, and later Russia and Japan. to work as a system for protection. From Schutt Sports, you've got three options in terms of football faceguards: the carbon steel, which has been tried and true; titanium, which is very light but very expensive; and then you have stainless steel stainless steel: see steel. stainless steel Any of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10–30% chromium. The presence of chromium, together with low carbon content, gives remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. that is an in between weight between the carbon steel and the titanium and it is also in a middle price range. Where's the business going? We conduct focus groups on a daily basis. We bring in high school coaches and some college coaches and equipment mangers every single year. We try to understand what their problems are so we can solve them. Surfacing Chuck Fleishman, Chief Marketing Officer American Sports Products Group/Southwest Recreational Industries What's the state of the market? In our more than three decades of experience, the market for SRI Sports synthetic fields is the most robust in history at all levels of athletic competition. What's the next great advance? It is allowing us to continue investing in new fiber, fill and pad technologies. We believe that the new hybrid systems that incorporate the best playing and performance characteristics of today's systems will evolve beyond the simply filled systems of today. Where's the business going? Future buyers will have to make sure that their investment will be protected over the life of the system and warranty. At SRI Sports, we believe that choosing the right company is just as important, if not more so, than choosing the specific product. Climatic conditions, maintenance costs, Title IX, newer technology, and long-term investment are major reasons why public and private organizations and institutions are re-investigating their synthetic options. John Gilman, CEO FieldTurf What's the state of the market? The market is expanding by tremendous leaps each year as more and more communities and school districts become aware of what FieldTurf can mean for them. Frankly, the big drawback in the past-the safety issue of AstroTurf --has disappeared so that the coaches, athletic directors and facility managers who need an all-weather grass field need no longer be hesitant about presenting the concept to their boards and communities. What's the next great advance? Our convertible field systems will have the ability to convert a football field to a soccer field or another sport within a matter of hours, bringing in much more revenue to both stadiums and communities alike. Where's the business going? Our infill business is growing by over 50% per year because FieldTurf is an affordable, safe alternative to natural grass. With water restrictions in place in many regions of North America North America, third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. , this will also drive this business. |
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