Sports Franchise

Information on various sports and sporting goods franchise business models and opportunities.

It’s good to know that at least the industrialized world keeps enough of a sense of fun to keep sports franchises in business. We were in danger of becoming humorless drones who never leave our cubicles for a while there. Have you ever seen a group of office workers socialize? They talk about work. Then they talk about sports. When they run out of things to say about sports, everybody stands there with a blank look on their face until they think of something to say about work again, rebooting the conversation.

Sports franchises are a very broad category, covering straight retail supplies, apparel, and activity centers. They include:

* Sporting goods stores. Pretty self-explanatory. Some of the retail chains which franchise in this category are The Athlete’s Foot and Educational Outfitters.

* Sports services. Services provided to professional athletes and sports businesses themselves. This can be anything from counseling to fitness. Collegiate Sports of America is a franchise which does recruiting of athletes for colleges and universities. ElizaJ is a franchised porta-john company, so you find their product at any soccer game. Future Stars Sports Photography is a franchise which does just what the name says.

* Sports activity centers. Miniature golf courses, batting cages for baseball practice, firing ranges for gun sports, stocked ponds for fishing, etc. Franchises in this category are Monster Mini Golf and Wheel Fun Rentals, which rents out go-carts and dune buggies and such.

The cost of starting one of these runs all over the place. Activity centers are the most expensive, since as you can imagine, you can’t lay out a decent miniature golf course without dropping about $250,000, and God knows what the insurance is for an archery range. Sporting goods and supply stores aren’t any more expensive than any other retail establishment.

The sports services have a wide range as well. That depends on what scale of operation you’re going for. Setting up a baseball training camp will be a huge, expensive undertaking, while pilates instructors can work out of their home.

And you might want to take a second look at the porta-john companies. Sure, it’s not the kind of glamorous job you dream about with stars in your eyes. But a porta-john business is dirt-cheap to set up, and the portable sanitation industry rakes in $1.5 billion dollar a year. So, that’s (1) answer phone call, take order (2) load porta-john on truck (3) deliver porta-john (4) pocket $1.5 billion a year, just because it’s work no one else wants to do.

One thing that’s common to most sports franchises is that, except for the porta-johns, they are all fun to work. Activity centers will be places whole families come to play at, and sporting goods stores tend to attract customers in a happy mood, thinking about their favorite activity and the cool gear they’re wanting to get for it. Just about any business related to recreation, in fact, tends to do well, since it’s one of the things people actually like to spend extra money on.