New Franchise Idea Pops Up in Sports: the Mall Gift Shop : Retailing: With America spending billions yearly on memorabilia, Sears and others perceive a lucrative field.

When entrepreneur Sam D. Battistone finally persuaded Joie Casey to join him in his latest venture, Casey didn’t travel light: His luggage for the move from Salt Lake City included 62,000 pounds of baseball cards and other sports collectibles that filled two truck trailers.

With Casey’s 6 million cards forming much of the inventory, Battistone founded the Field of Dreams chain of sports memorabilia stores last fall, selling everything from 59-cent packs of Topps trading cards to a $5,000 Babe Ruth autographed baseball.

The idea is that if you put an attractive, sports-oriented gift shop in a prime location at a high-traffic shopping mall, people will come.

With sales of collectibles surging to an estimated $4 billion a year in sports-crazy America, such ideas have occurred to others as well.

Sears Roebuck & Co. has opened sports memorabilia departments in a dozen of its stores, including three in California. Other big retailers, including J. C. Penney and Sharper Image, sell autographed items by mail order. And Connecticut trading card dealer Big Bob’s, like Field of Dreams, plans to build a national franchise network.

At the top end of the industry--and attracting most of its recent publicity--have been auctions of such rare items as the 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card that Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall and star Wayne Gretzky bought for $451,000 last March.

But the attendance of 100,000 at this year’s National Sports Collectors Convention in Anaheim over Independence Day weekend showed how broad-based the interest is.

Yankee Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle commands $30,000 a weekend to autograph baseballs and other items at trading card shows. He is just one of dozens of retired sports stars working the autograph circuit for serious money.

Battistone, 51, former owner of the Utah Jazz pro basketball team and of the Sambo’s restaurant chain, has ambitious plans for Field of Dreams to open 200 to 300 franchise outlets within five years. The chain has eight stores in Southern California, all company-owned, but it struck its first franchise deal in June with an Omaha, Neb., businessman who will open two stores there before Christmas, Battistone said.

Field of Dreams stores differ from sports-card shops in several important ways, Casey said. For one thing, card shops tend to be mom-and-pop operations in second-class space in strip malls or downtown shopping areas. Their typical customers are knowledgeable collectors who buy for investment, not nostalgia or mere fandom. Their markup and overhead are relatively low, and their profits generally can’t support a family. Many of the shops are part-time hobbies that the owners use “to finance their own (trading card) habit,” Casey said.

Casey, 40, considered a highly successful dealer, worked 18 years to build his Salt Lake City card business into three shops with combined sales of less than $1 million a year.

His and Battistone’s business plan is predicated on Field of Dreams shops grossing at least $450,000 a year from opening day forward, selling a much wider range of merchandise than card shops. Most of the products are “personality-oriented”--that is, focusing on a particular sports figure, Casey said. Besides trading cards, Field of Dreams carries, for example, boxing gloves signed by Muhammad Ali, football helmets signed by Joe Montana, autographed uniforms and autographed action photos mounted on wooden plaques.

The franchises aren’t cheap. The total investment ranges from $150,000 to $250,000, depending on size and location of store, Battistone said. Most shops will be 800 to 1,000 square feet.

Plans call for the outlets to be located in prime space in large regional malls. The customers are expected to be sports fans and gift shoppers who are not especially price-sensitive.

“We’re into a totally new segment,” Battistone said. He said the only chain that is comparable is the Disney stores, which are in malls and sell a wide array of gifts based on Walt Disney’s film and cartoon creations.

But more direct rivals may be in the wings. Sears, now just nibbling at the business, doesn’t rule out expansion, spokesman Greg Rossiter said.

“More and more dealers are going to the malls,” said Andy Rapoza, president of the Sports Collectibles Assn. International, the industry’s fledgling Miami-based trade group.

Big Bob’s Sports Collectibles has a goal of opening 250 shops within three years, Chief Executive Ralph Amato said. Each franchise, which requires an investment of $85,000 to $150,000, is smaller than Field of Dreams and more oriented toward card collectors.

Battistone hopes that the costly, “museum-like” design of the Field of Dreams shops, their prime mall locations and upscale merchandise will be too expensive for competitors to readily duplicate.

He licensed the Field of Dreams name from MCA Inc., whose Universal Pictures unit produced the popular baseball movie of that name, starring Kevin Costner. The film is run continuously on TV sets at Field of Dreams stores to cement the identification in customers’ minds. Soon, the movie will be supplemented by videos showing new products.

Battistone plans to eventually sign certain athletes to exclusive contracts for autographs and one-of-a-kind products. On that side of the business, he said he would like to emulate Score Board Inc., a Cherry Hill, N.J., firm that is one of the largest vendors of limited-edition sports memorabilia and autographed products.

The corporate parent of Field of Dreams is StratAmerica Corp., a Rancho Mirage-based holding company that also owns part of the Shari’s restaurant chain. Battistone owns about 65% of the stock.

The company’s most recent financial statement, for the quarter ended last Dec. 31, showed it to be in something of a cash squeeze. It had used short-term loans to open some of its stores and purchase inventory and was counting on selling some of its other real estate to pay off the short-term loans.

Battistone said he has since sold most of StratAmerica’s real estate not connected to Field of Dreams, enabling him to retire short-term debt and develop new stores with cash instead of through borrowing. He said he plans to sell the remaining restaurants too, so that the company’s focus will be completely on Field of Dreams.

Going, Going, Gone! Some sports memories don’t come cheap. Here is a selection of collectibles and their recent auction prices. Item: Collection of golf clubs owned by former British Open champions Price: $1,031,101 Item: 1909 “T-206” Honus Wagner baseball card Price: $451,000 Item: Original artwork for 1953 Topps baseball cards of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays Price: $110,000 each Item: 1886 St. Louis Browns engraved championship pendant Price: $82,500 Item: Complete collection of World Series commemorative bats from 1935 through 1988 Price: $55,000 Item: Baseball from first Hall of Fame induction in 1939, autographed by 12 stars, including Ty Cobb, Cy Young and Babe Ruth Price: $20,900 Sources: Field of Dreams, Sotheby’s.