Like so many niche sports, the equipment market for lacrosse is dominated by a fraternity of small companies staffed and often founded by former players. Lately, as the sport has been growing outside of its traditional Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic boundaries, it’s attracted attention from some of the largest brands in sports. The question is whether there’s enough opportunity in lacrosse to justify those investments.
 |
Nike was among the companies that pursued
Kyle Harrison, who wound up with STX. |
During the past few years, companies have been lining up to get into lacrosse. New Balance, a brand popular among older runners, bought Warrior Lacrosse in 2004, looking for relevance with younger consumers and a presence in team sports. Subsequently, New Balance took the largest sponsorship of the outdoor pro league, Major League Lacrosse, which was co-founded by Dave Morrow, Warrior president.
Last year Warrior introduced some of the first lacrosse-specific footwear, “The Burn.” Not to be outdone, Boston neighbor Reebok has its recently acquired The Hockey Company developing a head-to-toe lacrosse line that will be at retail late this year or early in 2007. Reebok is reinforcing its entry into lacrosse with a five-year sponsorship of the indoor National Lacrosse League. K2 Corp.’s rollup included deBeer Lacrosse, a Rawlings subsidiary.
Nike, the sporting goods industry’s 800-pound gorilla, has thus far only put its swoosh on camps and some limited lacrosse apparel. Still, the industry hears footsteps.
“We all know Nike is going to get into lacrosse soon, it’s just a question of when,” said Matthew Pace, executive director of MLL from 2001-04. Pace now heads the Sports Business and Sponsorship Practice at Duval & Stachenfeld, a New York law firm that is on retainer to the NLL.
When Kyle Harrison, the nation’s top collegiate player, graduated from lacrosse powerhouse Johns Hopkins last year after leading it to the NCAA championship, Nike was among those pursuing him. Harrison wound up going to STX, where he’s an employee as well as an endorser.
While manufacturers decry the lack of reliable statistics, they know the sport is growing in places such as Texas, Colorado and California where it’s sanctioned, often for the first time, by high schools.
“Lacrosse is still small on a relative scale, but the big equipment brands see growth in population centers like Texas and California, and that looks like dollars to them,” said NLL Commissioner Jim Jennings.
Established lacrosse brands such as Brine, STX and Warrior may control 75 percent to 90 percent of the market. None of the endemics can understand what opportunity the big footwear brands see in their small, if growing, sport.
 |
Warrior Lacrosse, owned by New Balance,
introduced lacrosse-specific footwear. |
“Nike’s entrance wouldn’t make much sense, but Reebok’s didn’t either and they hired one of my guys,” said Warrior’s Morrow.
There’s already been a retail shakeout. Among the deceased are the three-store Texas Lacrosse chain, a retailer in one of the sport’s growth areas. Even more disturbing, 104-year-old Bacharach Rasin, located in lacrosse-mad Maryland, shut its brick-and-mortar store and was acquired by Sports Endeavors Inc., a direct sales organization that mails more than 17 million sports equipment catalogs each year and operates sites such as soccer.com and lacrosse.com.
“The Bacharach name is still very much alive,” said Dale Green, regional sales manager with Bacharach, “but you’ll see some more people [retailers] die before it’s all over. There’s just a ton of stuff you have to inventory when you retail lacrosse.”
Since most lacrosse equipment is sold by smaller, specialty retailers, taking big inventory positions isn’t easy. More recently, lacrosse-only retailers have faced additional price pressure from e-commerce sites and big-boxes, such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, entering the sport.
In a domestic market without much growth in footwear or sports hardlines, some see lacrosse as analogous to ice hockey in the late 1970s — a growing sport with a fanatical base of well-heeled fans, players and parents. Still, even while participatory numbers are up, the immediate sales opportunity appears overhyped.
“It’s very simple,” said STX executive vice president Dale Kohler, another former Johns Hopkins lacrosse player. “The game of lacrosse is not growing as fast as the speed at which manufacturers are entering the lacrosse market.”
That sort of market scenario normally leads to oversupply, depressed margins and the likely eventual acquisition of endemic brands by deep-pocketed companies in search of scalability and credible trademarks.
Some see the lacrosse equipment market eventually playing out like hockey, where Nike bought Bauer and Reebok bought The Hockey Company, formerly CCM. To date, Reebok plans on using Rbk as its lacrosse brand.
“It’s a growing sport we had to be in, and we felt like we could make a difference with our R&D and technology,” said John Frascotti, senior vice president and general manager of performance at Reebok. “On a relative scale, the opportunity is not large today, but we’re very early in a growth curve that probably won’t top out for 20 years or more.”
