‍Our annual Team Headwear Roundtable provides insight into selling opportunities in 2024.

At the Table

Tim Nixon, National Sales Manager–Sporting Goods, Cap America

Matt Klein, Senior Product Manager, Champro

Ryan Garrett, VP, Nike Team Headwear

Nate Currier, Head of Sales–Sports, Outdoor Cap  

Todd Bradney, Director of Team Sales, Richardson

Chad Kennedy, National Sales Manager, The Game

‍Tim Nixon, Cap America: Right now, everything is running pretty smoothly. It is that time of year that we need to keep an eye on weather (tornado, hurricane and cyclone season is upon us), but those are situations we are able to see ahead of time and update our customers as warranted. We are constantly watching factory capacity, container availability and freight rates to ensure we are positioned to give our customers the best purchasing experience. We aren’t currently anticipating any new challenges in the new year.

Matt Klein, Champro: 2024 saw a recovery in the supply lines between both sides of the globe. wear.

Chad Kennedy, The Game: We are not having any supply chain issues currently and have not had any for quite some time. We do not have any reason to see that changing heading into 2025.

Ryan Garrett, Nike Team Headwear: Our supply chain is very strong. We are ready for significant growth to close out 2024. We are planning and ramping for another very strong growth year in 2025.

Nate Currier, Outdoor Cap: The last 18 months have been consistent on getting product into our warehouse; however, over the last few months we are seeing delays becoming more common. We aren’t back to the way it was 24-36 months ago, but we are seeing a few complexities come up and are being proactive in ways to shave off incoming product every chance we get.

Todd Bradney, Richardson: Overall, our inventory levels were strong throughout the spring. A couple of market trends and shipping delays through the Suez and Panama canals impacted inventory levels in a few key colors.

How are you handling these challenges?

Nixon: Our priority is keeping our customers aware of any issues or situations that may arise.  Though there is little we can do to control the shipping environment (i.e. weather, civil unrest, peaked demand, etc.), we have found that the more advanced notice we are able to give our customers, the more time they have on their end to work with us on alternative solutions.

Klein: Challenges are a part of growth. Champro is looking for sustainability in caps and a focused development plan that allows for continued success in the cap line.

Garrett: We have prioritized forecasting, material planning and capacity needs to scale for expected growth.

Bradney: We were able to minimize the impact by air freighting inventory and utilizing our domestic Custom USA and Custom Express programs. Fortunately, the relationships with our factories have never been stronger.

Kennedy: Even though we have not had any issues we are staying in front of potential challenges that could come. We have just been extremely aggressive in inventory buys, especially in core styles. While supply chain has not been an issue, we have maintained the same thinking to make sure nothing does arise.

Are your team customers making any concessions to supply concerns?

Bradney: We are seeing more business shift to our stock Performance Team Series (PTS) styles for quick turn. We are launching new programs to secure orders earlier in the selling season to help our dealer partners plan their business.

Kennedy: The one thing that happened during the supply chain issues was increase the urgency to order sooner. But with early buy incentives we offer that has always been a goal to achieve. Our custom cap lead times were never really affected and lead times stayed consistent. While our stock business is strong, we have not seen much change in stock versus custom.

Nixon: We have not noticed our team customers making any concessions to supply concerns, but we have noticed an uptick in our pull from stock orders.

Currier: We see both sides of the issue. Some customers have shifted their buying patterns due to volatility in the supply chain, opting for domestic stock based on timing and overall needs. In other cases our customers have done a great job of ordering early.

Klein: Custom continues to be a source of growth. Maintaining inventory levels in the popular colors will continue to feed this growth.

Garrett: We are seeing sales growth in both stock and custom product lines. Team dealers continue to ask customers to order early, but we have also expanded our stock offering with new styles and additional colorways to handle at-once needs.

Switching gears a bit, what are the style trends for team sports in 2024 in terms of colors, types of caps, visors, etc.?

Currier: Core colors remain popular, but we’ve seen new color variations rise to the top. The popularity of sublimation on jerseys is flowing over to the headwear space. We are seeing more requests coming in for the more unique colors outside of the traditional black, navy, red and royal. Performance/technical fabrics with creative accents are leading the charge on the style side.

Nixon: White is still a trending color in the team space across all designs and fabrics. Perforation is in high demand for on-field performance and breathability. We are also seeing perforated styles as favorites in the fanwear/lifestyle category.

Bradney: Our performance-focused PTS collection continues to drive our on-field business. Perforated performance caps are in high demand. Fashion pop colors like Columbia Blue, orange and gold are on the rise, while white continues to be a staple with teens.

Garrett: The trends continue to be performance products with lots of color options. In addition, I would say the old-school trends (rope caps, truckers and fashion caps) continue to be popular.

Kennedy: Performance headwear is still king. One other area we are seeing is the creativity within uniforms spilling over to headwear in not just design, but color as well.

Are you selling many caps through dealer team stores?

Bradney: Yes, we are seeing more on-field and fan headwear sales driven through online store platforms. Fanwear continues to be a very important part of our dealers’ businesses as it drives higher margins and provides greater connectivity with the end users.

Kennedy: Yes, and this has been a major focus. With every player there are a couple of parents and even more students and fans. That is an area where this is always so much room for growth.

Garrett: We are selling caps through team stores. We are optimizing our capabilities and processes to deliver with ease and speed. Selling fan caps is an important part of our growth plans.

Nixon: Yes, team stores have become a significant part of the sporting goods business and overall order process. We are seeing more fanwear specific styles sold via these platforms, but in some cases on-field headwear is included.

Where are there other headwear opportunities for team dealers beyond the traditional sports teams?

Kennedy: This really ties back into the team store question. You see a lot of dealers get that team order and walk by the fan gear. Booster clubs are a big growth opportunity.

Klein: Fanwear is a strong focus. Parents and fans alike will support their teams with the team’s gear in most situations. Providing access to the parents and fans is going to allow for continued growth.

Currier: Our focus has been to supply headwear to all sports, but naturally baseball and softball have been the sports that our headwear is most widely used for. More and more team dealers are using headwear for spiritwear, booster clubs and for the sidelines.

Nixon: The opportunities are everywhere. Everyone wants to feel like a part of a team, whether it’s a sports team, corporate gathering or family event. Restaurants, bars and breweries wear hats as staff or sell them in their retail stores or online. Businesses large or small can use headwear to promote themselves or help support their communities.

Bradney: Fanwear is a major opportunity to sell on-field headwear to parents and fans. We are also seeing great success with our performance models sold as fanwear and into the corporate space.

Garrett: Outside of the traditional team sports focus the biggest opportunities are in activities such as band and clubs, booster clubs and the corporate space.

Are there any technical advances in terms of fabrics or production that dealers should know about?

Kennedy: This ties back to an earlier question where we talked about sublimation and the creativity that allows in headwear. With us now allowing special pattern and designs, there is really nothing you cannot put on a cap that does not tie back into your uniform design. We see that opening up great opportunities.

Currier: We are always researching and developing new, innovative styles that provide style and comfort along with technical features that apply to all of the extreme uses. We have some new technology in the hopper that we are working on for 2025.

Nixon: Lightweight perforated fabrics that are breathable and moisture wicking continue to perform at the top of our on-field category.

Garrett: We are focused on performance materials and innovative decoration applications. We have some exciting new products and decoration options slated for 2025 and 2026.

Klein: We are promoting lightweight, breathable fabrics. Going into 2025, we are extending these features into a performance snapback cap.

Bradney: Lightweight, functional performance-poly stretch fabrics continue to be very popular in all activewear categories, including headwear.

Finally, where do you see the team headwear business headed into 2025 in terms of demand and styles?

Nixon: I see the demand staying strong for 2024. The COVID hangover is over and things are back to normal. There are always new teams forming and more and more tournaments to play in. The on-field styles will remain similar, just more lightweight and moisture management fabrics and the colors of the hats and the decoration on them will mimic the MLB, which sets the trends for on-field headwear. Dealers will want to be up-to-date on what the Major League teams are offering year after year.

Klein: Headwear appears to be rolling with retro designs in neons and snapbacks. Performance and lightweight fabrics are becoming a market-leading feature that spans multiple sports, as well as fanwear.

Garrett: Headwear is more popular than ever today. We believe headwear is as important as the traditional team T-shirt to teams and schools. In addition, parents and fans are looking for more ways to represent their teams, schools and programs. Headwear provides a great price point opportunity for an athlete or fan to support their team beyond the traditional shirt or sweatshirt. We expect this trend to continue to grow in 2025 and beyond.

Bradney: We see demand continuing to grow for performance styles in both traditional and pop colors. Perforated crowns will continue to trend and we expect to see specialty decoration make its way into on-field, performance headwear.

Kennedy: We are continuing to see a large increase in visor styles over the last couple of years. We want to push more with our custom offering to show the diversity of this style instead of the standard stock visors most customers are offered.