More than 90 percent of sporting-goods manufacturers, including athletic footwear and apparel, paid higher input costs in the first quarter, and 41 percent of those firms increased wholesale prices, according to a quarterly survey of private, independent vendors and retailers by Robert W. Baird & Co.

The study was reported by Bloomberg news in a story exploring inflation pressures amid rising costs for commodities, foreign labor and freight.

“This clearly demonstrates the emerging cost and price pressure across the sporting-good space,” Peter Benedict, a retail analyst in Stamford, CT, at Baird, told Bloomberg. “Were hearing a consistent message from vendors and retailers that cotton, fuel and wage costs are starting to go up, and theyre slowly going to come through on the retail side later this year and certainly in 2012.”

Bloomberg noted that sporting goods move to raise prices similar moves by airlines, restaurants and the broader apparel sector that are starting to show up in the consumer price index,.