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Cramer Sports Medicine

A new BtoB covering the $80 billion sports products industry launches with the blessing-and backing-of the industry's oldest trade group. Whitney Joiner

Sports Edge

URL sportsedgemag.com

COMPANY Sporting Kid, LLC

LAUNCH October 1

SUBSCRIPTION $69.99

NEWSSTAND PRICE N/A

AD RATES $8,000 (full-page, four-color); $1,600 (1/8 page, Color)

TARGET AUDIENCE

Retailers and manufacturers of sports products

FREQUENCY Monthly

PUBLISHER Tina D'AversaWilliams

EDITOR Michael Pallerino

"This is an $80 billion industry," says Sports Edge publisher Tina D'Aversa-Williams. "There's a lot of money to be made, and Nike shouldn't get it all."

That's where Sports Edge comes in, Williams hopes. Her new business-to-business magazine for sporting goods manufacturers and retailers plans to help even the smallest vendors sell more hockey sticks and bike helmets, running shoes and trampolines to a fitness-conscious country.

The magazine--produced by Williams' publishing company, Sporting Kid LLC, and backed by the industry's oldest trade association, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association--hopes to cover all aspects of the sports and fitness retail industry with product guides, management tips, and profiles of industry executives. Sample features include a profile of innovative new sports products; a spot check of the latest consumer trends, and retailer advice for maximizing profits while minimizing expenses.

It's an industry that keeps growing, says Williams. The fattening of America might be constantly in the news, but it's not due to a lack of interest in sports: Organized sports, extreme sports and women's sports are more popular than ever. Take soccer, says Williams, which has had "a tremendous surge over the past few years. And lots of traditional sports are doing well. We'll talk about these trends in every issue of the publication, and how retailers and manufacturers can work together."

But like every other sector, the sporting goods industry also has to worry about the recession. With less disposable income to toss around, consumers might think twice about buying that new pair of roller blades. "As one retailer told me, we're not selling products that save lives here," says Sports Edge editor Michael J. Pallerino. "We're selling products that people want to have fun with. And in an economy that has its challenges, people look at where they're going to spend that money. People might take family vacations instead of buying running shoes and hitting the trail."

COMPETITIVE SPORTS

Sports Edge will launch this month with a controlled subscriber base of 30,000. Initially, about 70 percent of its audience will be composed of retailers and 25 percent manufacturers. The other 5 percent will go to leagues, sponsors, dealers and distributors.

Williams says she expects to spend about $500,000 to launch the title before seeing any revenue, but she's optimistic for the future. Williams wouldn't reveal the ad page count for the premier issue, but says, "It'll be about a $5 million magazine in 2003."

But there's already some competition in the $80 billion sports industry. In fact, a business-to-business magazine about sporting goods manufacturing, called Sporting Goods Business, already exists. And in an interesting twist, Sporting Goods Business was at one time run by Sports Edge's Williams and Pallerino.

When the duo left Sporting Goods Business this June to launch Sporting Kid, a consumer magazine for parents of sports-loving children, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association approached Williams and Pallerino about starting a new trade title. "The SGMA called us and said, 'Look, there's a void in the industry; we need a BtoB mag that covers the entire industry, and we want you guys to publish it for us,'" says Williams.

SGMA president and CEO John Riddle says that he felt his association could produce a better publication for the industry than the internal magazine they'd been publishing: "We needed to get the word out to the industry about our programs, and we didn't think we were doing as good a job as we could." Plus, says Riddle, the sporting goods industry had grown, incorporating not only manufacturers and retailers, but sponsors, sports delivery organizations and the media.

"THEY'RE OUT FOR OUR BLOOD"

A little competition could do Sporting Goods Business some good, says Riddle. "Sporting Goods Business is a good publication, but it's the only one the industry has. At one point we had four magazines, and now we're down to one. We thought it made sense to have some competition."

And how does Sporting Goods Business feel about the competition? "They're out for our blood," says Williams.

Sporting Goods Business editor and publisher Mark Sullivan doesn't go that far, although, "based on what I've heard, it seems like they're taking a 'me too' approach," he says. For instance, Sports Edge plans to launch an industry trade event similar to the one hosted by Sporting Goods Business, says Sullivan. But he adds that he welcomes the competition, and, like Pallerino and Riddle, thinks the industry can afford two titles.

In fact, Sullivan wonders why it took the SGMA so long to get involved in publishing. "I really don't know why they've waited," he says. "Their dominance in the industry has diminished a little. Their trade show is not as dominant as it once was." Sullivan does admit, however, that his magazine would have "welcomed the opportunity" to work with the association.

At least one advertiser says this is not an either/or, pick-one situation. "We're a member of the SGMA, and we want to try to support the initiatives the industry is taking as a whole," says Chris Waldeck, vice president of marketing at sports medicine company Cramer Products.

Cramer Products is advertising in Sports Edge because it wants to reach their targeted audience of buyers and retailers, says Waldeck. "And because of the magazine's affiliation with the SGMA, But we advertise in the other publication, and we'll continue to do so."

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