Racquetball Rebound Boosts Ektelon’s Sales : Sporting goods: San Diego company is believed to control more than 50% of the U.S. market. Innovation is cited as the key to the manufacturer’s success.
After leveling off from rapid growth in the 1970s, the popularity of racquetball has rebounded significantly since 1987. And that’s given a big boost to sales at Ektelon, the San Diego-based sporting goods manufacturer believed to control more than 50% of the U.S. racquetball equipment market.
Founded in San Diego in 1967, Ektelon makes racquets, balls, shoes, gloves, eye wear, bags and accessories, making it perhaps the most vertically integrated racquetball company around. The company is owned by closely held Prince Holdings in Princeton, N.J., which acquired it in October 1988 from Browning Arms Co. of Morgan, Utah.
Terms of Ektelon’s sale to Prince, the nation’s leading seller of tennis racquets, were not disclosed. Published reports have estimated Prince’s revenues at more than $100 million.
Sales at Ektelon are up by 25% from the level of two years ago and have doubled since 1986, it president, Norm Peck, said. He wouldn’t release precise revenue figures, but insiders say the company accounts for more than half of all racquetball equipment sales in the U.S.
Using the National Sporting Goods Assn.’s estimate of $59.8 million in total racquetball goods sold in 1988, the most recent year for which figures are available, Ektelon’s current annual sales could exceed $30 million.
The resurgence of racquetball’s popularity is evidence of the durability of racquetball as a participant sport and of the constantly changing exercise habits of U.S. consumer-athletes, said Jim Haiser, assistant executive director of the American Amateur Racquetball Assn.
Racquetball “was a faddish sport in the late 1970s and early 1980s. People got into it and out of it,” Haiser said. “Now people are taking it up as an alternative source of conditioning.”
After peaking at 9.9 million participants in 1984, racquetball’s popularity tailed off to 7.9 million players in 1987, according to NSGA spokesman Dan Kasen. The sport’s appeal was probably undercut by the rising popularity of aerobics and weight training during those years, Haiser said.
Now, people interested in keeping themselves in shape are more likely to play several sports than stick to just one, Haiser said. That diversification of conditioning methods, combined with recent studies that show racquetball provides a good aerobics and calorie-burning exercise, have given the sport renewed appeal.
According to Haiser, a typical racquetball player’s heart rate reaches 70% to 80% of maximum during a 15- to 20-minute game, a nearly optimal aerobics workout. Players generally spend at least an hour on the court at a time, breaking briefly two or three times, he said.
According to National Racquetball magazine, more than 10 million Americans played racquetball in 1988. About 2 million of those are classified as frequent players, meaning they play more than 25 times a year. Racquetball courts now total 18,000 to 20,000 at 3,500 locations across the country, Ektelon said.
After its founding by former Olympic athlete Bud Held, Ektelon introduced its first product, a racquet-stringing machine, in 1967. Two years later, the company introduced its first racquet, the first aluminum alloy model in the industry.
In 1978, the company unveiled the first racquet made of composites, an extra strong substance similar to plastic epoxy, and, in 1984, the first oversized racquetball racquet. Innovations such as these, plus imaginative marketing have given Ektelon a 2-to-1 lead in market share over its nearest market competitor, Wilson Sporting Goods, Peck said.
Joel and Jeff Lehrer, co-owners of Frontier Pro Shop, a racquet sporting goods shop on Midway Drive that is one of Ektelon’s leading retail and wholesale outlets, said new products and good styling and packaging have helped give Ektelon its competitive edge.
“Innovation is the whole thing. It really stimulates the market and gets people to try something new,” Joel Lehrer said.
Ektelon’s payroll ranges from 175 to 200 during the year, depending on seasonal demand. Employment increases during late fall and winter, when products are in highest demand in the eastern United States. The sport is regarded in the East as mainly a winter, indoor sport, Peck said. West Coast racquetballers play year-round, he said.
The company’s administrative and manufacturing activities are situated at its 64,000-square-foot Aero Drive plant.
Before joining Ektelon in 1980 as promotions manager, Peck, 41, spent eight years as a squash and tennis coach at Princeton University. He said the company’s strength has been its concentration on racquetball products.
But the company last year introduced its first squash racquet, and Peck says the company hopes that squash becomes the next sports fad.
“Squash is already hot on the East Coast, and there is definitely growth potential,” Peck said.
