Sports gear business on the rise
The market pegged at $30m; may grow 100% annually
By : k. sreedevi
Update: 2014-11-12 02:44 GMT
Chennai: Game frenzy youth of the country have ope-ned up new avenues for sports team gear makers in the country.Personal involvement of fans with a need to flaunt their support to their favourite team and player has turned India into a lucrative fan gear market.“Cricket apart, Indian youth are now showing a lot of interest to global events such as football, tennis etc and are now taking pride in displaying their favourite teams or players through t-shirts, caps and other accessories,” said Atul Srivastava, founder of Gaames Unlimited, which is the official licensee of ICC World Cup 2015 in India.
The fan gear market in India is pegged anywhere between $15 and $30 million. “Though for now this is a small number compared to the global scenario, we are seeing a 100 per cent growth year-on-year,” Mr Srivastava said.In India, talk-down version of team jerseys and duplicate apparel is what has been popular. Now with leagues of kabaddi, hockey, football, badminton coming together, this is an emerging market for fan gear, he added.
Enthused by this gro-wing interest, the sports talent management co-mpany has decided to foray into fan gear for the World Cup 2015 this time. Gaames Unlimited has decided to launch a complete range of lifestyle accessories including leisure wear, party wear, belts, knapsacks and others for men, women and kids this season. “This is the first time that the fan gear merchandise is being exte-nded to other lifestyle categories with over 70 plus range of designs and colours,” Mr Sriv-astava claimed.
So much so, the company is hopeful of $3 million sales of fan gear both from offline and online sales. With manufacturing tie-ups with players at China, Tirupur, Ludhiana, Australia, etc. in place, the company is now firming up its marketing plan with sports companies and big retail chains.On the online front, it has roped in Amazon as its exclusive partner.
“We started off with selling fan gear online for Indian Premier league (IPL) 2014 and saw a very good response with all available team merchandises being lapped up,” said Pankaj Jathar, category leader, Sports & Outdoors, Amazon.in. “Since the start in March 2014, sportswear sector has seen a five times increase in sales. And for this World Cup season, with over 111 items for sale, we are quite confident,” Mr Jathar said.