Consolidation has long been the buzzword in the team sports business, starting on the dealer side with BSN Sports and continuing with the likes of Game One and, more recently, Allied Sports, as well as less formal arrangements such as United Team Dealers.

And certainly leading the trend on the brand side has been Momentec Brands, with its acquisitions of leading team brands in the past few years that include Badger Sport, Alleson Athletic, Augusta Sportswear, Russell Athletic, High 5, Holloway and Pacific Headwear. Just as the dealer mergers and purchases have changed the face of the team business, those Momentec acquisitions have changed how business is done on the product side.

And now Momentec is taking the consolidation aspect of its business further with the opening of a huge, 755,000-square-foot office, warehouse, manufacturing and distribution facility in Kannapolis, NC, about 25 miles north of Charlotte. The opening of the plant earlier this year – which involved the gargantuan task of moving thousands of products and dozens of pieces of equipment from other facilities around the country, not to mention the programing of more than 170 Locus robots (think R2D2, but with a basket for products in tow) – may further change the team sports game.

By consolidating five legacy distribution centers into a single Performance Center, Momentec Brands has created an integrated operation to support its portfolio of brands. Managing separate inventory pools, varying shipping timelines and fragmented fulfillment processes, naturally created logistical complexity. The new centralized approach eliminates many of those challenges by creating one synchronized distribution ecosystem where inventory, fulfillment, decoration, kitting and shipping work together seamlessly.

The move to the Kannapolis location into an empty facility actually began in the Spring of 2024, started really taking shape this Spring and was finally completed – albeit with a few more wrinkles to iron out – over the summer. The goal, says CEO David Baxter, is to fulfill its motto of “Outfitting the moments that matter.”

“The goal is all about service and speed,” he told Team Insight during a recent visit to the plant. “It is giving our customers the confidence that everything they need from us is under one roof.”

The facility also extends beyond traditional distribution capabilities. Specialized production areas have been designed to support a range of value-added services that include automated co-packing, precision labeling, module assembly and serial-coded electronic compliance verification.

Of course, one of the challenges with any consolidation is maintaining the expertise and experience of the men and women who have been producing and distributing the products for years. Baxter is actually pleased with how that challenge has been met.

“That process has been very successful,” he says, pointing to key people relocating to the Charlotte area from Pacific Headwear and Augusta, while more from the nearby Badger office in Statesville are also coming along for the ride.

All of this adds up to the future of Momentec Brands and, Baxter feels, the way of the future for all of team dealers and brands looking to compete in a rapidly changing environment. “We want our customers to think of us first as a one-stop-shop for stock, decorating, uniforms and headwear,” he says.

Baxter provided some further insight during an in-depth interview with Team Insight.

Team Insight: The new facility is quite and undertaking. When and why was the process started?

David Baxter: When Momentec Brands launched we committed to be the speed and service solution in our industry. This was the goal in the beginning and still is our goal today at Momentec Brands. We knew in early 2024, we needed a home base where it all comes together for our team and ultimately our customers. Consolidating a fragmented network to a singular high-performance distribution center was challenging. We replaced regional geographic silos with a hyper efficient, predictive ecosystem keeping a significant core of our team together while recruiting and training new team members. This unified distribution center is designed to serve our customer network with improved speed and accuracy and deliver in-stock orders in one shipment with a unique combination of technology and passion.  

Why is the consolidated facility so important to the future of Momentec Brands?

Our customers have long desired one optimized website where they place orders and one shipment to track from Momentec.

Are you up and running at the facility now?

The Momentec Brands Performance Center is now fully operational and has been running at optimal speed and capacity since early July this year. We have given many customer tours of the Performance Center already and invite all of our customers to work with their sales reps to schedule a tour when they’re in the Carolinas.

So on a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the effort and success of the move?

The move has been a resounding success — a clear 10 out of 10.

Do you want to give a shout-out to any particular key people who have made the move successful?

The most important element of our effort in building one location for stock goods is clearly our people. It’s been a total team effort and will continue to be to constantly push ourselves to service our customers faster, more accurately and with the passion to get better at what we do every day.

Have you personally had any run-ins with the Locus PickBots?

We have had no issue with our team of Momentec PickBots. They are agile and smart — programmed to pick an order and deliver it safely and accurately to the packing area dodging humans along the way.  

I am sure there has been some challenges with closing the other facilities – how have you approached that and what have been the ups and downs of that?

Caring for the people impacted and making sure we do everything possible to assist those team members in transition is key.

What about key people relocating to the Charlotte area?

We are fortunate to be able to offer a hybrid work environment to a lot of our employees. Most of our team members that are local to the Statesville area –just 25 minutes from Kannapolis – have stayed with Momentec.

How are your different brands being sold by your reps?

We have the same reliable core brand portfolio of Holloway, Alleson, Badger, Pacific Headwear, Augusta Sportswear, High Five, C2 and Russell Athletic.

What determines what they bring out Momentec CEO David Baxter of their bag for what customers? Is this the good, better, best concept you mentioned?

Our brands are well known through decades of dependable performance and purposeful innovation. With our brand line-up, we have styles for every budget, every team and every player.

You just recently completed the consolidation of your website into momentecbrands.com. How did that process go and was it more or less difficult than the warehouse move?

The switch over to momentecbrand.com from our legacy websites went extremely smoothly. It took just under a year from planning to implementation and while less difficult than the DC consolidation into the Performance Center, it was challenging but rewarding to get such positive feedback from customers.

What can team dealers expect to benefit from your consolidated facility going forward? In other words, what is your message to them as Momentec moves forward?

All our brands under one roof. All stock orders shipped as one with cutting edge technology fueling the highest-level speed and accuracy on every order. In addition, a dedicated focused team with a ton of experience innovating and delivering on our mission  to be the trusted outfitter of moments that matter.

It is now mid-2026. Are you where you wanted to be at this point in the consolidation?

Yes, we are where we want to be. It certainly hasn’t always been a smooth ride the past few years and we appreciate our customers sticking with us through our consolidation bumps. Now, we find ourselves through the tunnel and knowing we are ready to serve our customers like never before. It’s the most exciting time at our company and we want to share this excitement with are customers.

And when we check in again a year from now, where do you want Momentec to be and what is it going to take to get there?

Our mission will never change: Serve customers with Simplicity, Speed and Accuracy. A year from now we will be better in all these areas and more. We will have growth that is guided by our mission and growth that always makes us a better partner and supplier. That single minded customer focus will never change at Momentec Brands.