In a year-end open letter to the sporting goods industry, Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) president and CEO Tom Cove outlined some of the programs and efforts the association made in the past year. 

“Because of your engagement and support, we continue to fulfill our mission to promote sports and fitness participation and industry vitality,” Cove writes, adding that I am proud to say through the adversity we faced during the pandemic and supply chain disruption, SFIA was still able to help our members in a myriad of ways throughout the year.

Some key highlights of successes for SFIA in 2022 include:

• Advocating on the industry’s behalf for targeted tariff relief through Congress and the Executive Branch action.
  
• Leading a massive multi-stakeholder coalition including the professional sports leagues, SFIA companies, health club industry, and more than 4000 local sports leagues and organizations, all working to pass the PHIT Act.
  
• Adding a new ethnicity participation breakdown to SFIA’s nationally-recognized 88 single sport participation reports.
  
• Launching a completely revamped, refreshed website and a new Member Portal to create a more streamlined user experience.
  
• Leading the effort to control cost for NOCSAE certification that resulted in direct credit/rebates for almost all licensees for past overcharges.
  
• Supporting the successful effort for Congressional intervention to avert a nationwide rail strike.
  
• Implementing SFIA-supported Shipping Reform (OSRA) to lower detention and demurrage charges.
  
• Coalescing the team equipment industry to resolve sticky regulatory challenges such as the NOCSAE ND 200 standard for Commotio Cordis protection.
  
  
• Convening the industry back together in-person for our Team Sports Rules Conference and the Industry Leaders Summit.
  
• Launching the first-ever member satisfaction survey to better understand the value of an SFIA membership and how we can enhance these benefits and services.

SFIA has also announced two programs to launch in 2023:

• The SFIA Community Pro Deal Marketplace is a digital commerce platform to increase its members’ product sales while offering SFIA member employees access to discounted products.

• SFIA Fellows is a career support program to empower early-career employees from underrepresented communities.