Good Sports
Get off the sidelines and into the game! Starting a business based on professional sports could put you in the big leagues.
The crunching of body parts, as 300-pound linebackers slam into
each other. The crack of the bat, as Sammy Sosa slams another ball,
whipping through the air and into a stadium full of thousands of
cheering fans. Millionaire giants lunge for a ball, hoping for the
chance to seize a brief moment of glory and win one for the
team.
There are a hundred dozen ways to explain the appeal of
sports--and yet no way to explain it. You either get it or you
don't.
But one thing is for sure: "Sports" is plural;
it's almost always about the team. There are a few exceptions,
like golf and tennis, but most sports are a group effort.
That's why fans always shout "We won," instead of
"You won." But as some entrepreneurs know, you can be
part of a winning team without being able to pitch a
95-mile-an-hour fastball. You don't even have to paint your
face green and scream like a lunatic in 25-degree weather. You can
be part of a team by starting a business in the professional sports
industry.
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Sure, you can focus your company on college sports, where
everybody is making money, even the players--or do you think free
college tuition and other perks aren't forms of money? Or you
might make a mint with a business aimed squarely at the high school
or kiddie sports crowd. But arguably, your best point spread comes
when you can attach yourself in some way to professional sports,
where there are more teams and fans, and where there's more
money. In part, that's because it's an ever-changing,
ever-evolving industry, says Skip Horween, president of
Chicago-based Horween Leather Co., which has been providing leather
for NFL footballs since the 1950s. "There are a lot of
barriers," he says of entering professional sports, citing a
base of established competitors, many of whom are running lean by
outsourcing their operations. But on the plus side,
"there's differentiation and specialization," more so
than in other industries. For instance, Horween, 47, knows of an
entrepreneur who sells briefcases, watches and other leather-made
gifts, all manufactured from old major league baseball gloves. That
type of innovation is rooted in the history of the sports
industry.
And so if you want the best odds to create your own winning
team, you may hit a home run by starting a business based on
professional sports.
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