Women take to the field: sports chains respond to females' show of strength

Discount Store News, Oct 7, 1996 by Richard Halverson

NATIONWIDE DSN REPORT - Oshman's Sporting Goods, Houston, is coming out with a coloring book called Girl's Sports Book.

It depicts scenes of young girls participating in various sports, at times with their mothers. Worked into the sketches to be colored are the names of various sponsors, such as Reebok and Spalding.

The coloring book illustrates what is happening in the sporting goods market, where women now buy more than half of the merchandise at some chains, such as Sport-mart, often for their own use and not just as gifts for their sons, boyfriends or husbands.

Thanks to Title IX - the government mandate that high schools and colleges offer equal sports opportunities for girls - girls in increasing numbers are participating in high school and college sports. More importantly for retailers, they are continuing to play sports upon graduation.

And sporting goods manufacturers are responding by designing equipment to fit the female figure. They are also taking into account a woman's lower center of gravity compared to men, as well as lesser upper body and hand strength.

Moreover, sporting goods retailers are awakening to the new opportunity by gearing up marketing and merchandising programs to capture the female sporting goods dollar.

Oshman's, under chairman Marilyn Oshman, appears to have come the farthest in developing a marketing thrust aimed at women.

From Oct. 11 to 13, Oshman's will hold its fifth annual Oshman's Women & Sports promotion.

Responding to the gold medal success of women athletes at the Summer Olympics, Oshman's will bring nine Olympic stars, including Rebecca Lobo, Julie Foudy, Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Fernandez, to conduct in-store clinics and demonstrations at Oshman's SuperSports USA stores in 14 cities, including Houston, Phoenix and Seattle. Oshman's will distribute 100,000 copies of its girls' sports coloring book.

Highlights of the five-day promo will be the announcement of recipients of its Grants for Girls, a total of $80,000 in grants to support girls' sports programs, an increase from $60,000 in '95.

The goal of Women & Sports, said Oshman, daughter of founder Jake Oshman, is "to provide leadership and vision in acknowledging the importance of women and sports and to support the development of sports opportunities for girls and women of all ages." Last year, 25,000 girls benefited from its sports grants, Oshman said.

To support in-store merchandising, Oshman's affixes a special sticker on all equipment designed for women. The sticker features a stylized head of a woman jogger and the Women & Sports name.

So far, vendors haven't produced a great amount of gender-specific equipment, Oshman said. But in 1991, gender-specific equipment didn't even exist.

Including ski apparel, 15% of Oshman's sales of apparel and shoes are for women, up from 7% in '91. That represents a growth of 138%, Oshman said, compared to 15% for overall company sales.

Spalding is one vendor that has put a lot of financial resources behind women's products, Oshman said, including a 28.5-in. basket for women (compared to 30-in. for men) and women's fast pitch softball gloves that feature narrower hand openings and finger stalls to accommodate women's smaller hands.

In its Supersports USA units, Oshman's features a Spalding POS display that almost amounts to a Spalding women's kiosk, she said.

Louisville Slugger has developed lightweight, 25-oz. fast pitch bats for women, she said. Fast pitch is almost an entirely female sport; women account for more than 90% of players.

Browning has developed a $1,700 12-gauge shotgun for women with the help of Sue King, executive director of the Women's Shooting Sports Foundation. It weighs several ounces less than the man's version, has the same action and barrel and its stock fits a woman's hand and figure.

Bike manufacturers have always made girls' models, without the center bar. But Terry Precision Bikes is making a special model with every component scaled down to fit a woman from 5 ft. 2 in. to 5 ft. 9 in., Oshman said. "All companies will devote part of their resources to women's products once they realize the market," she predicted.

Sports apparel manufacturers, often companies founded by women, have done even more in developing sports clothing cut to fit women. Examples include: Hodgman, neoprene fishing suits for women; Moving Comfort, running pants with bigger hips; Champion JogBra, jogging, bras; Gilda Marks, exercise apparel; Browning, hunting boots built on narrow women's lasts; and Shoot the Moon, hunting vests for women. Shoot the Moon vests are cut to fit a woman's figure and feature colors, patterns and designs that appeal to women. said King.

Sportmart, Wheeling, Ill., "has a way to go" in marketing to women, president Mark Scott conceded.

Efforts now include breaking out women's equipment within each sport category, he said. In the spring, Sportmart circulated a flier for women's equipment and plans another next spring. The chain also has a frequent buyer list and Is developing one for women. Its 1996 72-page catalog for Christmas gift giving will highlight goods designed for women's use, Scott said.