The trade war is promising a heap of disruption for the team dealer space heavily reliant on imports. While the tariff situation remains extremely fluid, skepticism remains high among industry executives that they’ll fulfill Donald Trump’s vision of revitalizing the U.S. manufacturing sector. While there’s been a trend toward bringing back U.S. production to help firms react quicker to trends, it will take years to rebuild America’s factory base and high wages are expected to continue to make U.S. producers less competitive than foreign ones.

Many of the industry’s product components, including yarn for team uniforms, are also largely based in the Far East.

Todd Smith, CEO of the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), tells Team Insight that with little time to react, U.S. importers and their factory partners could only absorb a portion of the tariff costs with consumers ultimately facing higher prices.

“These tariffs are really bad for the business of sports and fitness,” says Smith. “They’re going to be bad directly in terms of prices that will increase that consumers have to take on. They’re also going to be bad indirectly because discretionary spending will shrink for all individuals, whether they’re buying sports equipment or not. That means they’ll have less money to put towards sports registrations, fitness classes and other things that you know are so vital to our industry.”

The China Impact

Although the situation remains extremely uncertain throughout the spring, many economists and investment banks have forecast an increased likelihood of a recession should tariffs remain high.

The biggest impact on the industry are the tariffs imposed on China, which remains a major producer of sports equipment, athletic apparel and athletic footwear despite diversification efforts in recent years. Of the $10.3 billion worth of sporting goods imported into the U.S. in 2024, $6.27 billion, or 61 percent, originated from China.

“It’s a devastating thing to this entire industry,” points out Ken Kennedy, the owner of Revo Sportswear Group, a major sublimation player based in Canada. “So much of the sporting goods industry is sourced out of China, it’s frightening.”

Furthermore, the sporting goods industry potentially faces the threat of those reciprocal on-again-off-again tariffs hitting a wide range of countries in July that were paused for 90 days to support trade negotiations.

Smith says the pause still frustrates planning and tariff mitigation efforts for the industry because there’s the chance a tariff becomes a major expense in the future.

“As a manufacturer, you still have to factor that into your business plans and your forecasting and your ability to potentially hire new staff or innovate and research and develop, because you might be taking on new costs and you just don’t know that,” the SFIA exec points out.

Kennedy believes the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for countries outside of China was the “very worst thing that could have happened” because it makes it impossible to plan. He notes that while the pause offers a chance to find alternatives to sourcing from Revo’s factory in Zhejiang, China, the alternative country of origin could likewise be facing reciprocal tariffs by the time product arrives at U.S. ports past the 90-day pause.

“The challenge that every company is going to face – mine and everyone else – is the uncertainty of the flip-floppy nature of what’s going on with these tariffs,” he says. “How do you plan when you don’t know if it’s a permanent or a temporary change?”

Kennedy says Revo will only be able to shift some production to its factory in Camargo, Mexico, as he believes many sublimation firms will face hurdles replacing the capacity and expertise provided by Chinese production: “China’s by far and away the largest supplier of sublimated goods.”

He adds that Revo will be looking to further diversify its sourcing to other countries in the Far East, such as Pakistan and India, as well as South America, not only due to tariff risks but because sublimation is “still massively expanding and growing” and needs more production capacity to scale. However, he notes that it will be a challenge gaining consistent coloring in the dying process in onboarding new factories.

Overall, he sees tariffs as “purely inflationary” and believes the globalization of trade has been largely positive for consumers and businesses. “Nobody’s holding a gun to my head, saying, ‘Buy from China’ or ‘Buy from Mexico’ or ‘Buy from America.’ We’re doing it because it’s the best value for our customers and for ourselves,” Kennedy says. “It was a choice we made.”

In response to all the tariff action through mid-April, Revo first instituted a 30 percent price increase as China’s tariff rate reached 54 percent on April 2 as the initial reciprocal tariffs were imposed. Revo then added an 80 percent “temporary increase” as China’s tariff rate surged to 125 percent on April 9 due to retaliatory moves by the Trump administration after China imposed its own tariffs on the U.S. If the added reciprocal tariffs are lifted by the time the item ships, the charge is removed.

Kennedy remains hopeful that the “ridiculously high” tariffs resulting from the U.S./China tiff will be reduced to more sensible levels or eliminated. “At some point there’s going to be pressure on both the U.S. and China to get some common sense going here,” he says, with a hint of optimism. “And it is my truly heartfelt belief that we will go back to something very close to where we were.”

Gill Athletics, which makes facility and gym equipment largely supporting track and field, basketball and volleyball under the Gill and Porter names, produces 80 percent of its product in the U.S. and yet its domestic production is still being impacted by the tariffs on aluminum. It imports largely commodity products with about 10 percent subject to the China tariffs.

Despite having a large chunk of U.S. production, Steve Vogelsang, VP–sales and marketing at Gill Athletics, doesn’t see any benefit for his company as he expects schools facing challenges paying higher prices for uniforms and other categories to reduce orders in facility categories.

Maybe the school was planning to buy 20 hurdles, but now will only have enough budget for 10 because they had to replace uniforms,” he points out.

Vogelsang doesn’t expect Gill Athletics will need to be making any pricing adjustments in the near term with the track and field season largely done and “lot of inventory in our pipeline.” However, he suspects the company may have to adjust prices around July 1 ahead of volleyball season depending on whether current tariffs are lifted, or new ones arrive.

“We won’t take an increase unless we absolutely have to,” he tells Team Insight. “It’s hard to provide guidance to our dealers about what’s going to happen to pricing when we’re not sure what the full impact will be.”

Meanwhile, Chad Kennedy, national sales manager at The Game, the maker of baseball caps and other headwear, says his company sources significantly from China, but also from other countries, including Vietnam, and has been exploring shifting production.

The challenge is that the quick tariff changes, often becoming effective within days of the announcement, makes it hard to cancel orders and alter sourcing. “You’re basically on the hook for everything that’s been produced or is in transit to the U.S. as well as for orders already sold where you weren’t planning on tariffs,” Kennedy points out.

“We’re still going back and forth with our factories trying to figure everything out and not react too quickly because you don’t want to be changing what your rate is every week,” says The Game’s Kennedy. “Our dealers are selling a bunch of other hat companies and different apparel companies, so we’re trying to make it as easy as possible for them to keep track of what everybody’s doing because everybody could be doing this a little different.”

Effective April 1, The Game began charging 50 cents a unit on its custom cap program to cover a portion of the cost of the 20 percent tariffs placed earlier in the year against China related to fentanyl smuggling. As of mid-April, however, the company hasn’t cancelled orders or adjusted prices due to the 10 percent across-the-board tariffs on all imports as well as the retaliatory 125 percent reciprocal tariffs against China.

Kennedy says that of mid-Spring that the firm plans to absorb the costs in the near term as it seeks more clarity on tariffs going forward.

“We want to do the fairest thing for our end customers, whether it’s the sporting good dealer or high schooler or whoever the end user is wearing our hat,” says Kennedy. “Price increases are probably inevitable because of the tariffs. As a company, we want to absorb as many of those costs as possible and explore every possible avenue before we say, ‘Look, this is what our increase is going to be.’ At the same time, we’re hopeful the tariff rate eases back down, and we can go back down on price.”

The Dealer Impact

Gordon Geiger, EVP and co-owner of Geiger’s, an apparel, footwear and gear retailer for snow sports, outdoor and team activities with two stores in the Cleveland suburbs, says many vendors have sent letters to Geiger’s acknowledging the tariffs with several hoping to shift sourcing to regions less impacted by tariffs to make the “potential increases a little softer.”

Geiger, who also serves as chairman of NSGA’s board of directors, suspects he’ll be able to absorb product prices rising about 10 percent but would have to raise prices to his customers if prices climb closer to 25 percent. “We still don’t know what some of these increases are ultimately going to be,” he says, calling it a “kind of a wait-and-see” situation.

Bob Fawley, president of Capitol Varsity Sports, a reconditioner and seller of sporting goods with two team stores in southwestern Ohio, says his football helmet business is impacted by the tariffs because even though major players such as Riddell and Schutt assemble products in plants in the U.S., the interior components largely come from China. The steel tariffs also impact prices on face masks.

Fawley is hopeful that the tariffs can revive domestic production and reduce the trade deficit, but also believes it will take years and likely face several challenges, including finding labor. “The truth is I run a small reconditioning factory that needs 35 employees and I can’t fill it consistently,” he points out.

Fawley suspects the tariffs are more about “leveraging and positioning for negotiations” to improve tariff terms that could help reduce the prices he has to charge to schools. He notes that prices for helmet components are now largely set by only two players, Schutt and Riddell.

“From the reconditioning world side of it, we’re already paying an extremely high rate for the parts we buy,” he says. “If we have to go any higher, that could start to drive people away from football.”

With the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs and his core parts suppliers indicating they’ve ordered early, Fawley doesn’t expect to have to make price adjustments for the school cycle that ends in late August, but all bets are off for the following year.

“It’s a wide-open book for when our football programs are bought in September to November for the following year,” he points out.

The final word for team dealers and their suppliers: Stay focused, stay flexible and stay tuned.