SOME GUYS PLAY THE SPORT; SOME JUST BUY THE GOODIES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 4, 1993                   TAG: 9302040072
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MARC RICE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Medium
SOME GUYS PLAY THE SPORT; SOME JUST BUY THE GOODIES
Fully aware he can wear only one at a time, Mark Foster keeps on buying baseball caps.
Foster has a collection of team caps ranging from the New York Yankees and the Negro Leagues' Cleveland Elites to a $42 plaid model with a polo crest.
"I cherish that hat. It's my special hat. . . . I hold it in my hand like it was a baby," said Foster, 22, who works for a law firm.
Americans' enthusiasm for caps, shirts and other sports merchandise has caused explosive growth in the sporting goods business. That will be evident when the industry opens its trade show in Atlanta on Friday.
About 1,200 exhibits of caps, shirts and even candy emblazoned with team logos will fill the Georgia Dome, the 70,000-seat home of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. The four-day convention, expected to draw 90,000 manufacturers and retailers as well as dozens of sports stars, is closed to the public.
Sales of licensed sports merchandise - featuring emblems of professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey teams - hit $7 billion in 1992, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association.
And industry officials say products featuring college logos and images of individual athletes also are taking off.
Kids have been wearing the caps of their favorite teams for almost as long as pro sports have existed. But demand has grown dramatically as the leagues intensified their marketing of sports merchandise as nostalgia, fashion statements and exercise wear.
"I think you want to live through your players, materialize your fantasies. Everyone would like to shoot a basket like Michael Jordan," said Helen Bailey, marketing manager for Salem Sportswear, a licensed clothing maker in Hudson, N.H.
Stores dealing exclusively in licensed goods have sprung up in addition to the general sporting goods stores that carry the merchandise.
"The desire of consumers to buy these products to satisfy their emotional craving of belonging to a particular college or professional sports team is underlying this growth," said John D. Riddle, president of the manufacturing association. "I don't think the end is in sight."
Foster said he keeps buying caps simply because they make him feel good. He has about 20 of them.
"You can never have enough hats," he said. "My lady friends say, `When do you get the time to wear them all?' It's just a thing with me."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB