In the Spring of 2020, if you didn’t know otherwise you would have thought that baseball and fast-pitch softball teams, even the amateurs, were on strike. Diamonds were deserted. Dugouts sat vacant and bleachers were empty. Concession stands shuttered — not a hot dog vendor to be found.

Think back to a little more than a year ago when one of America’s favorite sports pastimes – NCAA March Madness – was cancelled due to the pandemic. Tough times for team sports amid dark times in America.

As athletes dust off their caps and return to the playing fields this summer and fall, team dealers thankfully no longer have to worry about whether or not they will have orders to fill, but other concerns take their place — specifically, will those orders arrive on time?

Matt Carlson, president and CEO of the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), has been with the association for more than 13 years. Prior to joining NSGA, he had a career in local government leadership for more than 20 years...

The summer of 2021 is a time of rebirth and re-opening for America and, thankfully, for the team sports business as well. As more state and local governments and agencies give the go-ahead for a full reopening, the team market is enthusiastically ramping back up to full strength.

The major headwear vendors show off their latest new products — and offer some advice to dealers.

It was recently reported that Stanford University will be reinstating all 11 sports it rashly considered eliminating during the pandemic. At the same time both William and Mary and Dartmouth reported they intended to remove planned cuts to varsity sports programs.

Over the past few years and lately accelerated by the pandemic, there has been a shifting dynamic in the relationship between team dealers and their vendor partners — and it’s not all for the better.

Taking advantage of local conditions, including the sale of Johnny Mac’s and Nill Bros. to BSN Sports, the owner of St. Louis-based soccer specialty store Soccer Master has taken the unusual (these days) step to expand into becoming a full-line team dealer.

Going back an extra season for accurate numbers, the big-picture participation numbers for tackle football in the U.S. remain solid, if not spectacular. (COVID-19’s impact was so severe that the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) didn’t conduct...