Sporting goods industry sweats out pandemic

As society sweats out the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Sporting Goods Association works up a sweat, even as bats, balls and athletic gear sit in storage.

While no games are being played, not everyone working in the sports industry has been benched.

"We're staying busy," said Marty Maciaszek, director of communications for Mount Prospect-based NSGA and a former Daily Herald staff sports writer. "We're just trying to find different ways to keep our members informed of what's going on."

April is typically a busy time for NSGA, and not only because athletic gear is flying off the shelves of local sporting goods stores thanks to the arrival of spring sports. In any other year, the NSGA would be gearing up, so to speak, for its annual management conference and team dealer summit, which normally takes place in a warm-climate city.

When this year's event in Phoenix was recently canceled, it meant the NSGA, like a sports team preparing for an end-of-season tournament, had to step up its game. NSGA's core members are retailers and dealers, and a lot of its members throughout the country are small-business owners who have been impacted significantly by the coronavirus.

This year has been a different kind of busy, however. Maciaszek, who's been working from his McHenry home, has kept busy communicating with NSGA members about everything from the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses to loans to other business-related concerns, including potential email scams.

"The demand (for sporting goods) right now is just not there," Maciaszek said. "At least with the members I've talked to about it, they're selling a few things here and there (online), but there are no team sports going on, and youth sports are all on hold, so (the pandemic) is really having a pretty dramatic impact."

According to Reuters, last month's shutdown of professional and amateur sports, along with the closure of most sporting-goods retailers, contributed to a near-record drop in prices for sports gear. They fell 2% month-over-month in March, matching the previous record decline in November 1982.

Dick's Sporting Goods, which is the largest sporting goods retail company in the United States and has more than 800 locations and about 40,000 employees nationwide, has put many of its staffers on leave. Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Goods has temporarily suspended operations at its factory and warehouse facilities. The manufacturer notes on its website that its customer service team members are answering all calls and questions, only now from their homes.

When retail stores, large and small, will open again is a question no one knows, and it has everyone concerned.

"Then even when things do start to open up, what's it going to be like?" Maciaszek said. "I think a big question along with that is, 'When do team sports come back?' We got a lot of ski and snowboard shop owners that we represent. What's going to happen with them when it comes time for ski slopes to open up again?"

For now, no sporting goods business is ready to throw in the towel.

"Everybody we've talked to or heard from said they're holding steady," Maciaszek said. "A lot of our members have applied for the Paycheck Protection Program, the small business loans, and that it's certainly going to help them. The big thing is that they will at least help them pay their employees during this time."