SPALDING & BROS
SPALDING & BROS, THE AMERICAN BRAND FOUNDED BY BASEBALL PROMISE ALBERT GOODWILL SPALDING
Spalding & Bros is an American sporting goods company founded by Albert Goodwill Spalding in 1881.
ALBERT GOODWILL SPALDING
Born in 1850, in Byron (Illinois), he was a baseball promise. Albert began playing baseball in 1865 as a teenager with the Rockford Pioneers. However, his mother pushed him to enter the business world, so Albert started working in many sectors: from grocery, to publishing to insurance. Enterprising and athletic, he was a reference figure for the baseball world of those years. In 1876 he helped create the American National League and invented the first official National League baseball, which was later sold in the small family store in Chicago.
The baseball designed by Albert Spalding
SPALDING & BROS
After a few years of recognition in baseball, he left his professional playing career and after five seasons founded AG Spalding & Bros. Inc. in Chicago to begin producing baseballs with his brother J. Walter Spalding and eventually his brother-in-law, William Brown. The company was quickly successful thanks also to Albert’s knowledge in the world of baseball.
With a starting capital of $ 800, Spalding & Bros began producing, in addition to baseballs, other sports components such as gloves, shoes and uniforms. In fact, the company, then also known simply as Spalding, has had a long history in the production of other sporting goods. Innovation and technical excellence were also used in the creation of baseballs, soccer balls, basketballs, volleyballs, soccer balls and a wide range of sports equipment and apparel .
From 1880 to 1898 the Spalding Company collects an enviable series of firsts: for the United States it creates the first tennis, football and golf ball and signs the first ever basketball in the world. In 1885 the first official store was born in New York’s most prestigious street, Fifth Avenue. From this exclusive store, the name will later become AG Spalding & Bros., 520 Fifth Avenue, NY. In 1900, the company was the largest baseball bat manufacturer in the United States.
THE EXTENSION OF THE BRAND
Spalding & Bros. also expanded its business with the introduction of the Library of American Sports, renamed Spalding’s Athletic Library, which offers more than 300 publications relating to sport and physical activity. The company subsequently moved its headquarters from Chicago to Chicopee, Massachusetts and by 1917 there were already over 33 sporting goods stores in the United States and 15 stores in England, Scotland, Canada, Australia and France. In addition to being a place for buying equipment, the shops have become places of learning about some dynamics of sport thanks to the experienced sales staff.
The brand policy dictated quality, fixed retail prices, a fair profit for retailers and consumer satisfaction. “Quality First” has become the company’s slogan.
Spalding & Bros
In 1930 the company developed the first golf ball containing liquids inside. This represented a major technological advance in golf balls. Further improvements were developed in 1968 with the first two-piece high-performance golf ball.
In its more than 135 years of success, the Spalding Company has undergone many evolutions and updates in order to be always in step with the times. Together with the sports sector , a line of accessories and leather goods has also been developed . This is designed to reach an audience that is not necessarily sporty but always in full compliance with the Spalding philosophy. The spirit of its founder has remained intact in all these declinations: from bags to stationery, from watches to wallets: the carefully finished leather, the unmistakable detail, the vintage flavor of America in the golden years, reworked in exquisitely current terms. .
Leather goods
The company offers collections for both men and women with particular attention to accessories and small leather goods.
SPALDING & BROS AND BLUBOX
Spalding & Bros., through Blubox (company that develops the Spalding & Bros leather goods license), manages single-brand stores in Bologna, Milan, Modena and two shop-in-shops at the Rinascente (Milan and Rome), in addition to the e -commerce, on which sales grew in double figures in 2019.
In 2019 85% of AG Spalding & Bros turnover was obtained in Italy, while the remaining 15% was generated abroad.
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