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Document 30 of 67.

Copyright 1998 Information Access Company,
a Thomson Corporation Company;
ASAP
Copyright 1998 Capital Cities Media Inc.
WWD

July 23, 1998

SECTION: No. 146, Vol. 175; Pg. 7; ISSN: 0149-5380

IAC-ACC-NO: 20960468

LENGTH: 778 words

HEADLINE: SPORT CHAINS LOOK FOR DESIGNERS' HELP; selling men's sports wear

BYLINE: Ryan, Thomas J.

BODY:
CHICAGO -- While hot urban brands and the much anticipated arrival of designer sport lines are creating a stir, athletic retailers continue to grapple with overall lethargic demand for activewear -- especially men's.

"Athletic apparel is just plain soft," said Alan Cohen, president and chief executive officer of Finish Line, who spoke last Friday, along with several other heads of athletic retailers, at a financial forum held in conjunction with the National Sporting Goods Association's World Sports Expo.

"It's not devastating, it's just not moving," Cohen said.

While many have blamed the recent weakness on a glut of athletic apparel inventory by majors such as Nike, Adidas, Russell and Reebok, Cohen blamed demand.

Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, Old Navy and Tommy Hilfiger "seem to be the apparel of choice for a lot of our customer base," he said.

Ralph T. Parks, president and ceo of Footaction, said he believes core Nike, Adidas and Reebok products may have overspread their distribution by feeding too much to mass channels. He also conceded that chains such as Old Navy and Abercrombie's are too popular.

"The kids are wearing it; it's cool," Parks said.

Most of the executives cited strong potential in women's apparel and footwear as women's participation in sports continues to increase. They also see the promise of new sport lines from Seventh Avenue designers.

Athletic chains generally are in better shape than they were in 1997, when an overabundance of athletic footwear dragged down results for many. Without high-impact products such as in-line skates, golf equipment, treadmills or ab rollers to lure shoppers, sporting goods stores and athletic specialty stores are turning to designers for help. "One of the problems with this business is that there's nothing leading the way," said Alvin N. Lubetkin, vice chairman, chief executive and president of Oshman's, a sporting goods megastore operator based in Dallas.

Cohen, who said fashion designers are "talking very seriously about coming into our chain of distribution," expects to see some designer lines hit the selling floor by early 1999.

"The box is ready for it. It's just a matter of getting the product and making sure the product's right," said Cohen.

Cohen suspects designers will be driven to this distribution channel primarily to give their sport brands authenticity. He declined to speculate on who might come in, except to say they are "the ones you expect."

"Quite honestly, the only reason these design people would come to us is because they want to be much more authentic than they are in the athletic area and they finally have realized that they will never accomplish this in the department stores," Cohen said.

Lubetkin said many athletic chains probably would consider new merchandise categories such as designer sports lines because the formats are changing from strictly sports focused to "lifestyle" formats. Foot Locker, for example, offers DKNY activewear; Paragon Sports, a gigantic sporting goods store in lower Manhattan, showcases Polo Sport.

Cohen doesn't see the entry of designer sport apparel as a direct attack on Nike and Adidas, pointing out that most athletic chains are increasing their size to add more selling space.

Finish Line, for example, is focusing on building sites of more than 10,000 square feet compared with its traditional store of less than 5,000 square feet. Footaction is converting its original 2,000-square-foot store format to a 4,000-to-6,000-square-foot format. Oshman's megastores run from 40,000 to 85,000 square feet.

Parks said Footaction has commitments from some designers, but said he could not provide names at this time. However, he said Footaction's current "fashion brands," which include a bevy of urban labels, are on fire.

"Between MTV and Vibe and all of this, it takes a product only a short period of time to move from urban to suburban, and we're getting tremendous success out of our middle-America markets from Fubu, Dada and Mecca, and we're starting to see that success on the girls' side," Parks said.

Cohen said Nike and Adidas men's shops, which range from 1,500 to 2,000 square feet, "have historically have been the highest performers in our stores." Finish Line also recently set up exclusive Nike women's shops.

Michael J. Newsome, president of Hibbett Sporting Goods, a traditional full-line sporting goods chain based in Birmingham, Ala., said apparel is the weakest performer in Hibbett's mix, largely due to continued weakness in pro sports licensing.

He noted, however, that women's apparel and footwear "has been dramatically up since last year."

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

IAC-CREATE-DATE: July 30, 1998

LOAD-DATE: July 31, 1998