BSN Sports promoted Bob Dickman to the role of director of acquisitions and Tevis Martin to the role of EVP corporate development. The company also announced that it plans to resume its strategy of acquiring sporting goods team dealers, and recently closed on the acquisition of Ken-Tenn Sports, Inc. of Martin, TN.
Adam Blumenfeld, the chairman and CEO of BSN Sports, stated, “During the past eight years, BSN Sports has acquired a number of strategically located sporting goods team dealers. These team dealers were chosen based upon their solid customer base and, more importantly, the strength and management talent of their owners. All of the owners from the acquired team dealers are on the BSN Sports management team today.”
Each of these acquired team dealers continued to operate as separate entities under its own brand name and on separate computer systems until recently. This past year BSN Sports reduced its acquisition activity so it could focus its time and attention on rebranding all of the individual company names under the BSN Sports brand name and migrating all of these entities onto one computer system. The rebranding effort and the computer migration have been completed. BSN Sports now has a much more robust and scalable platform that will enable us to easily add more team dealers and sales pros to our infrastructure.
As part of its renewed acquisition strategy, BSN Sports has created a team of people dedicated to acquiring team dealers and expanding its sales force. “I am pleased to announce this team has already completed its first acquisition with the closing of Ken-Tenn Sports, Inc. of Martin, Tennessee on April 13, 2012. We are thrilled to welcome former owners Jim Scott, Gordy Brown, Wade Bigham, Mike “Pearl” Harber and his loyal team into the BSN Sports family. We are equally proud of our newly formed acquisiton team that both Bob and Tevis will be closely working with in their new roles,” says Blumenfeld.
Blumenfeld continued, “Bob has been a highly respected figure in the sporting goods industry for more than 25 years, is a past Chairman of the National Sporting Goods Association, and can speak to the attributes of joining BSN SPORTS very well, since he operated the first team dealer to join us in 2004. We are fortunate to have Phil and Dan Dickman, Michael and Ken Caravati, Dan Salkeld and several other former team dealer owners playing important roles inside BSN Sports. Bob will rely on their expertise and industry relationships as he takes on this new opportunity. Bob Dickman will also maintain his current responsibilities as senior VP purchasing for BSN Sports.”
Tevis Martin moves from an operations and sales management role within the company to the position of EVP executive vice president corporate development. Martin will focus exclusively on new business development projects related to acquiring sales teams, team dealers and corporate joint ventures. He will work closely with Bob Dickman in executing transactions and transitioning them into the BSN Sports culture and onto the company's operating platform.
Blumenfeld then stated: “While BSN SPORTS has a physical presence in almost every state in the United States, mails more than three million catalogs each year, and operates an extensive phone outreach program from its headquarters in Dallas, TX., this announcement today signals our intent to further extend the Company's feet-on-the-street reach from coast to coast. We have more than 40,000 SKUs, own approximately $40 million in inventory, have solid relationships with a multitude of valued branded partners, and own industry-leading technology and distribution. Now it's time to connect the dots and make sure we have the best ambassadors for the BSN SPORTS brand in or near every community where sports are played. That leaves us a lot of ground to cover.”
According to Bob Dickman closed by stating, “This industry is becoming more difficult to successfully operate in due to a variety of factors that team owners don't control, including more well-capitalized competitors, school budget cuts, increases in cost of goods and slow paying customers. I believe there are a number of team dealer owners who are not ready for retirement but, at the same time, want to convert their business into cash due to the more competitive environment. Deciding to sell Kesslers Team Sports to BSN Sports in 2004 was a very difficult decision for me and my family, because we enjoyed the independence of operating our own business for more than 20 years. However, in retrospect, our decision to sell our business and become part of BSN Sports has been a huge win for me, my brothers and our respective families.”
Founded in 1972, BSN Sports is the largest marketer and distributor of sporting goods apparel and equipment to the institutional markets in the U.S. The company distributes more than 50,000 products to 125,000 institutional and team-sports enthusiasts through a direct sales force, the Internet and catalogs.
