New ballgame for Sportsman’s Guide

The Sportsman’s Guide expanded beyond hunting and other outdoor gear with its June 2004 purchase of The Golf Warehouse (TGW). Now the South St. Paul, MN-based mailer is expanding again, beyond the links to the baseball field with the launch of two additional Websites: BaseballSavings.com and SoftballSavings.com.

Management at TGW will oversee and maintain the two new sites. Spokesperson Bill Bartkowski says the sites were given “soft launches” in early March.

Golf Warehouse CEO Mark Marney says that BaseballSavings.com and SoftballSavings.com are “natural and logical extensions of our business and our business model. They allow us to extend and enhance our long-standing relationships with many of the same manufacturers and distributors that we have been working with at TGW for years.”

What’s more, says Bartkowski, “baseball/softball is a younger market than that reached by The Golf Warehouse or The Sportsman’s Guide. Softball has a large percentage of female participants and teams. As a result, the new Websites will reach a new, growing, and somewhat younger demographic than traditionally reached by The Sportsman’s Guide or The Golf Warehouse.”

For now, Sportsman’s Guide has no plans to launch print catalogs to complement the new Websites. But Bartkowski says that the sites “could be a blueprint for subsequent growth and/or expansion.”

New Ballgame for Sportsman’s Guide

The Sportsman’s Guide expanded beyond hunting and other outdoor gear with its June 2004 purchase of The Golf Warehouse (TGW). Now it’s expanding again, beyond the links to the baseball field. Sportsman’s Guide has launched two additional Websites: www.BaseballSavings.com and www.SoftballSavings.com.

Management at The Golf Warehouse will oversee and maintain the two new sites. Spokesperson Bill Bartkowski says the new sites were given “soft launches” last week.

Mark Marney, CEO of TGW, says BaseballSavings.com and SoftballSavings.com are “natural and logical extensions of our business and our business model. They allow us to extend and enhance our long-standing relationships with many of the same manufacturers and distributors that we have been working with at TGW for years.”

What’s more, says Bartkowski, “baseball/softball is a younger market than that reached by The Golf Warehouse or The Sportsman’s Guide. Softball has a large percentage of female participants and teams. As a result, the new Websites will reach a new, growing, and somewhat younger demographic than traditionally reached by The Sportsman’s Guide of the Golf Warehouse.”

For the moment, the company has no definite plans to launch print catalogs to complement the Websites. But Bartkowski says that the sites “could be a blueprint for subsequent growth and/or expansion.”