Wilson Sporting Goods

Wilson Sporting Goods Company has the largest market share in the sporting and athletic goods industry, with its strongest competitors such as Anthony Industries, Inc., Johnson Worldwide Associates, and Spalding & Evenflo far behind. Wilson Sporting Goods has maintained the lion's share of the market throughout its history primarily because of its focus on manufacturing high-quality products in the categories of basketball, football, volleyball, golf, baseball, soccer, racquetball, squash, footwear, team uniforms, and an extensive line of sports apparel. Of all the company's products, it was the sale of golf equipment that catapulted Wilson Sporting Goods into a place of prominence within the industry during the 1980s and 1990s. The company's plant in Humbolt, Tennessee, was manufacturing more than 45,000 golf balls on a daily basis, and had grown to become the third largest golf ball plant in the world. Due to its position in the marketplace, and its growing presence overseas, Wilson Sporting Goods was purchased by WSGC Holdings, Inc. in 1985. A 1989 merger between WSGC Holdings and Bogey Acquisition Company, an affiliate of the Amer Group Ltd., resulted in Wilson Sporting Goods becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the Amer Group, located in Helsinki, Finland. Wilson Sporting Goods was incorporated in 1913 as the Ashland Manufacturing Company, and was originally established to find unique ways of using slaughterhouse byproducts of a nearby meat-packing firm, its parent company owned by Sulzberger and Schwarzchild. By 1914, the company was producing such items as tennis racket strings, violin strings, and surgical sutures, and had expanded into baseball shoes and tennis racquets. In 1915, the company appointed Thomas E. Wilson as president, and from that moment onward nothing was the same. Wilson, a hard-headed businessman who saw the potential of a sporting goods company, broke away from the parent firm of Sulzberger and Schwarzchild, began to focus exclusively on the manufacture of sporting and athletic equipment, and then named the company after himself in 1916. Thomas Wilson immediately started to expand the operations of his company by acquiring the Hetzinger Knitting Mills and a small caddie bag company. Hetzinger was purchased for the purpose of producing high-quality athletic uniforms, while the caddie bag company's extensive line of luggage products was reduced to the manufacture of golf bags alone. Basketballs and footballs were also added to the company's rapidly growing list of items for sale. In 1917, the company was so confident in the quality of its product line that it announced a two-year unconditional guarantee on all of its products. During the same year, the company began manufacturing golf clubs and football helmets. Although Thomas E. Wilson left the company in 1918, no interruption occurred in either the manufacture of its products or the growth of its revenues. By the end of the year, sales reached the $1 million mark, an enormous amount of money for a company that had been in existence for only a short time. The company closed out the decade by acquiring Chicago Sporting Goods Company, a manufacturer of uniforms, by reaching an agreement to supply all the equipment for the Chicago Cubs baseball team, and by hiring Arch Turner, one of the prominent craftsmen in the leather industry. Hiring Turner was prophetic since his innovative designs for the leather football had a profound influence on the development of the game. The decade of the 1920s was one of the most successful and most innovative periods for the company. In 1922, Wilson introduced the Ray Schalk catcher's mitt, which from that time onward set the standard for design, comfort, and padding within the baseball industry. During the same year, the company established its advisory staff of athletes, with the famous golfer Gene Sarazen as its first member. The most influential member of the advisory staff, however, was the football coach of No