While the Big Four of football, basketball, softball/baseball and soccer are understandably the core of any team dealer’s bottom line, the revenue generated by the so-called “specialty sports” are just as vital. And with the continued growth of travel and club teams in volleyball, wrestling, track and lacrosse outside of the traditional high school season, many of these sports are generating revenue for 12 months a year. Let’s take a quick look.

Spike in Volleyball Sales

SFIA reports that there has been a significant increase in participation in court volleyball since 2020. Back then there were 5.4 million participants, of which 3.2 million were core participants (those playing the sport 13-plus days/year).  By 2025, overall participation was 7.8 million people, with 3.7 million core participants.

In the opposite of the wrestling trend, much of the growth has come from the boys’ side — it’s now played by both boys and girls in high school and college.

At the high school level, court volleyball is played by both girls and boys,, although girls still rule. NFHS reports that girls’ high school volleyball is the third most popular high school sport in terms of participating schools (17,213) and second in terms of participants (502,056).  

Not surprisingly, girls’ volleyball is played in every NFHS state association, while boys’ volleyball is in 31 states.
According to Davis Whitfield, new executive director of the NFHS, court volleyball is a rising star on the high school athletic scene.

“Volleyball continued its rise in popularity and topped 500,000 participants for the first time,” Whitfield points out. “The top fall sport for girls moved to number two in 2024-25, supplanting basketball, and now is only 7014 behind outdoor track and field for the number-one spot.”

Team dealers are benefitting from this participation resurgence and report that rarely does a week go by where they don’t receive a volleybal order year-round.

Al’s Sporting Goods has both a retail division and a team division that sells volleyball, according to Hart.

“We have a strong volleyball business with a big volleyball club here in town as well as many schools,” says Hart, who has nearly 60 years of sales experience in the sporting goods industry. “We also have a strong retail business selling shoes for volleyball.”

On the team side, Hart sells uniforms, socks, net systems, three different brands of shoes (Nike, Under Armour and Adidas) and two different brands of volleyballs (Tachikara and Wilson).  Wilson is the official volleyball for Delaware high schools.

Down in Vero Beach, FL, Dave’s Sporting Goods has a solid volleyball business that has exploded to include beach volleyball.
“Volleyball is so popular in my area that I have 12 different types of volleyballs on the wall,” reports owner Dave Whipp.

Whipp’s volleyball inventory includes uniforms, nets, knee pads, arm sleeves, volleyballs and three different types of shorts – two-, three and four-inch inseam. Many of the more conservative schools specifically order the four-inch seam shorts for their girls. Whipp also does not sell volleyball shoes.

“The volleyball footwear business is too specialized and I cannot stock enough inventory, so they buy their shoes from Internet websites.”

Volleyball is anything but a minor sport for Kratz Sporting Goods in Indiana. “We do pretty well with volleyball,” says Krebbs.  “We sell everything from head to toe on and off the volleyball court.”

For years in Indiana, high school volleyball has been the exclusive domain for girls, but that’s no longer the case and now the girls are playing the fall and the boys in the spring.

“Boys volleyball is catching fire,” adds Krebbs. “It has grown exponentially in the last four to five years.”

Krebbs also sells girls’ volleyball to travel clubs, which makes the entire volleyball category one of his biggest annual revenue generators.

Taking it to the Mat

According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s (SFIA) most recent participation studies, overall participation in wrestling is increasing, but “core” participation levels are on the decline.  In 2020, there were 1.9 million wrestlers in the U.S. By 2025, that number had risen to 2.2 million wrestlers.

But the number of those core wrestlers (those participating 26 days or more a year) dropped from 692 thousand in 2020 to 515 thousand in 2025.

According to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), high school wrestling is the eighth most popular sport for boys in terms of the number of schools that sponsor a wrestling team (11,829) and the sixth most popular in participation (295,259). For the girls, high school wrestling is the 10th most popular high school sport in terms of the number of programs.

Participation in girls’ wrestling increased 19.9 percent from the previous year. Since the return to activities from the pandemic, the number of schools offering girls wrestling has jumped from 4802 to 8853 and the number of participants has increased from 31,654 to 88,771. In addition, all states are now reporting some participation in girls’ wrestling, and 40 state associations are now conducting state championships.

The proof is in the sales for team dealers.

“I’ve never sold so many girls’ singlets for wrestling as I have in the last year,” reports Joel Dunn of Allied Sports (formerly Baker’s Sports in Jacksonville, FL).

In Indiana, Coaches Corner manager Doc Claussen has a unique affiliation with the sport of wrestling. He sells product during the day and during the wrestling season in Indiana he’s inside high school gymnasiums as a certified high school wrestling official.  He’s been a wrestling official for more than 25 years.

Coaches Corner sells everything to do with the sport, except for footwear.

“We are no longer selling wrestling footwear since because we would have to carry so many SKUs in inventory and we don’t know what styles, colors and brands that the wrestlers prefer during any given year,” says Claussen, pointing out that wrestlers are buying their shoes online. However, the sport remains key for his business, especially with the girls.

“During the last five years, the growth of women’s wrestling has been pleasantly surprising,” Claussen says. “It’s growing so quickly that a high school coach contacted me recently asking if we could build an online store specifically for girls’ wrestling. He told me that he had around 25 girls on his wrestling team.”

Meanwhile, down in Clarksville, IL, Kratz Sporting Goods owner Allen Krebbs reports that his wrestling business has picked up in recent years, largely because of the growing number of girls taking up the sport.

“The Indiana High School Athletic Association has now approved girls’ wrestling with a state championship,” Krebbs reports.
An outlier in the business can be found in Wilmington, DE, where Al’s Sporting Goods’ owner Bob Hart tells Team Insight that all of his wrestling customers are male.

Lacrosse Sticks To It

Participation in lacrosse has been stagnant since the COVID pandemic — since 2020, participation has been fluctuating between 1.9 and two million participants each year.  

NFHS reports that 32 states play varsity lacrosse for girls and 30 for boys. In all, there are 98,300 female lacrosse players and 112,50 males.

Interestingly, the states with the most girls’ high school teams don’t necessarily have the most participants. For instance, the top five states with the most programs are New York, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But the top five states with the most players are California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

The same goes for the boys, where there is also no direct correlation between states with the most teams and those having the most participants. For instance, the top five states with the most programs are New York, California, Massachusetts, Florida and Pennsylvania, while the top five states in terms of numbers of players are New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

Lacrosse is a bit unique in that the main retail outlets are split between local team dealers, big-box sporting goods stores, slightly used retailers such as Play It Again Sports and specialty vertical retailers such as Lacrosse Unlimited.  

The latter is a good example of a retailer with an in-depth product inventory in lacrosse. Store manager (in Marietta, GA) Melissa Vaughn, points out that Lacrosse Unlimited has a strong physical brick-and-mortar presence in 60 locations around the U.S., as well a strong online sales portfolio.

“We sell sticks, cleats, shoulder pads, balls, protective gloves, socks, chest protectors and, of course, uniforms,” Vaughn says, pointing out that for the retailer it’s always lacrosse season.

“In the fall, there’s recreational lacrosse. In the spring, colleges and schools are playing. And, in the winter and summer, we are selling to travel teams,” she says.

Vaughn feels that Lacrosse Unlimited is uniquely qualified to garner a major percentage of the lacrosse business. “Our strength is our customer service and our staff’s very thorough product knowledge.”

When you take into account flat participation and steep competition from multiple retail outlets, it’s understandable why a team dealer such as PJ’s Soccer/Lacrosse in Bethesda, MD, is experiencing lackluster lacrosse sales.

“Our lacrosse sales have been somewhat flat for about five years,” reports owner Phil Galipo, who says that most of his sales have been to travel clubs and to individuals, starting as young as five years old.

“We sell lots of lacrosse uniforms, as well as all the gear,” he says. “We don’t sell too much lacrosse gear to high school lacrosse teams as they are going online. But individual players do buy from us throughout the year.”

At Kratz Sporting Goods, Krebbs says his location – just across the Ohio River from Louisville, KY – helps his meager lacrosse business.

“Here in southern Indiana, lacrosse has not hit our pocket of the state, but there is interest in lacrosse in nearby Louisville,” he reports.

Track makes a Run for It

Fun fact: Only in the U.S. is the term “track and field” used to describe what happens when athletes run around a track or throw a javelin. To the rest of the world, it is simply known as “athletics.”

Whatever it is called, track and field is an interesting category for team dealers. As popular as the sport is in the U.S., many of the top Americans leave in the spring, summer and fall to compete in the big European meets. Track and field stars may be born and raised in the U.S., but they blossom and mature in Europe. As a result, it’s not easy for young participants to be influenced by their American superstars.

Nevertheless, according to the NFHS, track and field remains one of the most popular sports at the high school level for both boys and girls. For boys, track and field is the second most popular high school sport in both the number of participants and number of schools.

For the girls, it is the second most popular high school sport in terms of the number of schools, but track and field takes the number one sport based on the number of athletes — 509,070.

And although the sport requires little in terms of uniforms and equipment, simply because of the big participation numbers track and field remains a key category for many team dealers.  According to Whipp, of Dave’s Sporting Goods in Florida, the sport brings in steady cash flow during the spring track season by selling compression shorts and track shoes.

“I’m always selling track shoes throughout the year for $50,” Whipp explains. “I have a permanent sign in my store window that promotes the sale of track shoes for $50. I sell quite a few every year.”

Dunn, of Allied Sports, reports that his the track and field business is filled with positives and negatives.

“On the plus side, the sport, especially on the equipment side, is filled with a number of equipment needs such as starting blocks, hurdles, padding for high jump and pole vault pits, a discus, a shot put, batons for relays, stop watches, a javelin and different types of spikes for sprinters, long distance runners throwers, and jumpers,” he says, although one of the downsides is that schools don’t need to buy those same items every year.  

“Once purchased, all of those items have a fairly long shelf life,” he points out.

Dunn says that sales of track singlets vary from year to year, depending on a school’s annual turnout and how many from the previous year are still in good enough shape.

At Kratz Sporting Goods in Indiana, the track and field business continues to expand, says Krebbs, who is selling equipment and new uniforms every three or four years.”

In Terre Haute, IN, the business fills a brief window on the annual sales calendar for Coaches Corner.

“Track and field is a short seasonal category for us,” explains Claussen. “We have a steady business of track uniforms – singlet tops and shorts,” although he points out that while track and field has a number of equipment requirements – hurdles, high jump padding, pole vault padding, batons, a discus, a shot put, a javelin, stop watches, pole vault poles and cones – these items don’t have to be replaced every year.

In a Pickle

Pickleball is expanding in so many different ways in so many cities that it is hard to keep track.

The most recent participation figures from the SFIA reveal an amazing rate of growth— in 2020, there were 4.2 million pickleball players, ages six and above participating at least once a year. By 2025, that had risen to 24.3 million players.  

Of those, 7.5 million of them are “core” players – those playing eight or more days a year. Of those, 57 percent are male, nearly 26 percent are older than 65 and 60 percent are from households whose income is at least $100,000 a year.

In other words, there is money to be made in pickleball and, in fact, the way it is growing pickleball may soon pass golf in popularity, especially among seniors.

Unfortunately, sales of pickleball gear are following the path carved by lacrosse towards specialty, vertical outlets – many of them online retailers or facility stores – that have popped up especially in large cities in the warmer climates. One such example is Premier Racquet Sports in Atlanta, a longtime tennis retailer that has added pickleball big time.

Co-owner Ellen Li, says Premier Racquet Sports, which is a full-line brick-and-mortar retailer that sells pickleball paddles, shoes, bags, weighted lead tape and three different colored balls for pickleball, is considered one of the ten largest retail outlets in the country for pickleball and is poised for strong growth.

“We have a wide selection of product and a super knowledgeable staff within the store,” Li tells Team Insight, pointing out they have been selling pickleball alongside its tennis inventory for almost three years now.

Another unique service provided by Premier Racquet Sport is its Demo Program, where customers can check out as many as two paddles at a time for as long as a week to see what they like. “At the end of the week, you must return the racquets or buy them,” says Li. “Our customers like this program.”

This philosophy is reminiscent of the old Sports Authority slogan of “Play Before You Pay and Try Before You Buy.”  The late, great Jack Smith would nod in approval.

In Vero Beach and throughout Indian River County, which is located along the Atlantic Ocean in central Florida, pickleball is exploding in popularity with seniors, young adults and school children, according to Dave’s Sporting Goods Whipp.

“A number of municipal tennis courts were sold by the city of Vero Beach to a private organization, which has turned them into 12 pickleball courts,” he says. “It’s called Pickleball University and you must join the club to get access to the courts.  The courts are always being used.

“Also, many oceanside residential communities in our area have added pickleball courts in their own developments and they are always filled with players,” he adds. “Schools are also adding pickleball. We have a good pickleball infrastructure within Indian River County.”

As a result, Dave’s Sporting Goods stocks 15 types of pickleball paddles and a number of balls.

According to Whipp, the average age of pickleball players in his area is getting younger.

“When people first started playing pickleball, most of players seemed to be in their 70s and now the average age is easily 20 years younger than that,” Whipp reports.

At Kratz Sporting Goods in Indiana, customers can buy paddles and balls used in pickleball. According to Krebbs, pickleball is quickly growing in popularity in southern Indiana.

In West Palm Beach, FL, at Berean Christian School pickleball is now one of the many activities. According to Luke Schartner, head of the school’s physical education department, pickleball gets equal billing alongside basketball, flag football, dodge ball, soccer, whiffle ball, capture the flag and other activities — and is becoming just as popular.