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Sport Chalet Acquires Firm to Extend Reach Among Team Sports

Sport Chalet Acquires Firm to Extend Reach Among Team Sports By SHELLY GARCIA Senior Reporter Sporting goods retailer Sport Chalet Inc. has acquired a local supplier of sports clothing and equipment in a bid for a larger share of the team sports market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Bassco Sporting Goods, a 20-year-old, privately-held company based in Van Nuys, manufactures and markets uniforms and equipment to customers including school sports teams and other leagues. Although Sport Chalet also sells team sports equipment, the company primarily works through middlemen to produce the merchandise, which requires customization like team names and numbers on jerseys. As schools have cut budgets for team sports outlets for this business have contracted and the competition has increased. “If the market is going to be stagnant, you can either choose to struggle in that arena, or do a much better job,” said Craig Levra, chairman and CEO of La Canada Flintridge-based Sport Chalet. “In a same size or shrinking pie our decision was to grab market share.” Bassco maintains its own silkscreen facility and warehouse and distribution facility that allows it to customize products in-house and ship directly to its customers. In addition the company has an established marketing system with four catalogs published each year and a web site through which teams can place orders. That will enable Sport Chalet to fill orders more quickly and less expensively than it can by contracting out those tasks to third parties. “We can take an order and turn it around very quickly,” Levra said. “We can work all night.” At the same time, Sports Chalet, which operates stores in 31 locations is able to extend Bassco’s reach.

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