Rawlings Sporting Goods history

In 1898, a fire broke out in the Rawlings’ storefront.

With revolutionary industry and product innovations such as football shoulder pads (in 1901), lightweight protective apparel, and the S100 batting helmet line, Rawlings is the authentic and global authority on protecting athletes’ bodies from head-to-toe.

They were first presented in 1902.

In 1906, Rawlings started to provide baseball gloves to St Louis Cardinals.

In the following year, 1907, Rawlings first-ever provided balls to the professional baseball league.

In 1913, seeking ways to use the by-products of their slaughterhouses, they started the Ashland Manufacturing Company to make violin strings, tennis racket strings, and surgical sutures.

In 1916, he renamed the company exclusively after himself.

A St Louis pitcher named Bill Doak went to Rawlings with an idea to give the glove webbing between the thumb and index finger, an extension of the fingers. It wasn’t until 1919 that they started to become a leader in baseball because of their innovative features to gloves.

On the other hand, Harry Latina joined Rawlings Sports Goods in 1922.

In 1929, the A.G. Spalding company went public.

Wilson Sporting Goods has made the balls for the National Football League since 1941 and still provides the NFL with about 25,000 game balls a year.

Rawlings was the fourth largest sporting goods concern in the United States in 1954, with sales of about $12 million.

In 1955, Spalding bought another key sporting goods maker, Rawlings.

In 1960, Spalding, the parent company of Rawlings had to face a legal law encounter.

He stated that Rawlings sold out the sporting equipment worth $20 million in 1962.

In 1967, Dunhill was merged with muffler maker AP Parts and renamed Questor Corporation.

They renamed themselves A-T-O Inc. in 1969.

In 1970, snack and beverage giant PepsiCo bought Wilson Sporting Goods.

In 1971, A-T-O acquired this well-known corporation for a sum of money.

By this time, in 1976, Rawlings established its gold sector under A-T-O’s separate division.

However, Rawling has been the official balls provider of MLB since 1977.

They sold 1.2 million dozen baseball in 1979.

In 1981, A-T-O was renamed Figgie International Inc.

In 1982, Questor “went private,” dropping off the stock exchange.

By 1983, Figgie stopped making toboggans under Adirondack.

In 1984, parts of Questor (Spalding and Evenflo) were bought by the sons of Venezuelan supermarket operator Diego Cisneros.

In 1985, PepsiCo sold Wilson Sporting Goods to private equity firm Wesray Capital, run by former Treasury Secretary William Simon.

Rawlings was specifically registered as the “Official Uniform and Protective Equipment Supplier to Major League Baseball” in 1987, after receiving clearance from the league.

In 1989, Wesray sold Wilson Sporting Goods to the Amer Group, a Finnish conglomerate that distributed Toyotas and sold cigarettes in Finland.

Being a baseball glove manufacturer in the United States, Rawlings was one of only two firms in 1990 that produced baseball gloves.

In 1991, Rawlings revenue a $145 million.

But in 1992, this was dropped to $135 million.

He blamed on Figgie in 1995, that they turned Rawlings into a Bobbin.

The acquisition of the Victoriaville hockey business added hockey sticks and protective equipment to supplement the full line of protective hockey equipment the company had developed in 1996.

By 1998, Rawlings brings a newly designed baseball named Radar Ball.

Since 2000, every single ball of Major League Baseball has been supplied by Rawlings Sports.

Buffett saw it as a good addition to the Fruit of the Loom company, which he had purchased in 2002 after it had gone bankrupt.

In 2003, the K2 ski company bought Rawlings for about $70 million.

In 2006, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought Russell for about $600 million.

In 2007, the diversified consumer products company Jarden bought K2.

(Sources: “The Invention of the Baseball Mitt” – Jimmy Stamp, Smithsonian July 2013; Spearhead (book) by Adam Makos; various internet sites)

In 2015, the even more diversified consumer products company Newell Rubbermaid bought Jarden.

In 2018, a partnership of MLB and Seidler Equity Partners bought the Rawlings business for $395 million.

In 2019, Chinese sportswear giant Anta bought Amer for about $5 billion.