Team Sports Planet scores with $1.3 million contract

High school football season is under way, but Brian Kerrigan can be forgiven if he’s more interested in Okinawa’s Kadena Panthers right now than the South Philadelphia Rams.
The company that he runs with his wife, Kari Altman, just landed a $1.3 million contract with the Department of Defense to supply team uniforms and equipment to 41 schools on military bases in Japan, Guam, South Korea and Okinawa.
For Team Sports Planet Inc., the contract comes at a critical time for the e-commerce firm that had been named one of the nation’s fastest-growing inner-city companies 16 months ago. The growth had stalled, thanks to the recession and the resulting drop in household income, Kerrigan said.
The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association last week said its annual study of participation in team sports noted weakness in the numbers. “Frankly, many families have not been able to afford to pay the basic fees for their children to play in local recreational sports programs or to play on some travel teams,” said Tom Cove, president of the group.
Kerrigan and Altman are veteran dot-com entrepreneurs who had prepared for big growth, not retrenchment. Team Sports Planet’s sales were nearly $2 million in 2006 and about $2.5 million in 2007. But instead of staying on track to reach $5 million as they’d scaled the business, sales began to tail off.
Team Sports Planet, which had grown to 17 employees, had to cut its workforce to 10.
As the couple reconsidered their business plan, the company was invited in June to bid on a government contract to provide uniforms to 41 high schools and middle schools in the Pacific region operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity.
This September, more than 23,000 U.S. students are enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade on those bases. Many play American football, baseball, basketball and other sports, but they rarely stay at the same base for long. Charles Hoff, public affairs officer for DoDEA Pacific, said that 30 percent of the students “transition” between schools each year.
Team Sports Planet previously had some teams on military bases as customers, so Kerrigan and Altman were eager to win this contract even as they found out how arduous it can be for a small business to meet the constantly changing requirements of a government bid.
But setting up a virtual catalog and online ordering system that the schools can use to place purchase orders for 12 different sports played to their e-commerce strengths. On Sept. 1, Team Sports Planet was notified it had been awarded the one-year contract with four option years, each valued at up to $300,000.
That’s also good news for other local companies that Team Sports Planet uses to fill orders, including an embroiderer and screen printer. Even the U.S. Postal Service office at Ninth and Dickinson could see more volume handling Overseas Military Mail.
Kerrigan is fiercely proud to be running a business in the city that provides work for other city businesses and can serve customers all over the world. But winning this contract makes him especially happy because of whom they’re doing it for.
“It’s nice,” Kerrigan said, “to do something for the children of these men and women who serve in the military.”

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