Wilson Industries history

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.

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.

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.

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.

And, although Bible was able to help Wilson develop helmets and shoulder pads, the company was unable to match the degree of influence on the game achieved with Rockne during the 1920s.

When Knute Rockne died in a plane crash in 1931, Wilson was able to form a close collaboration with Dana X. Bible, the football coach at the University of Nebraska, in an attempt to continue its development of innovative football products.

In 1939, Wilson achieved a major innovation in the design and manufacture of golf clubs with its ability to bond different layers and types of wood together to produce a criss-cross pattern that resulted in more power, better direction, and a longer period of use than previous designs.

Having remained at the forefront of sports equipment and uniform manufacturers, after the war ended in 1945 the company began to expand and grow dramatically.

In 1964, Wilson purchased Wonder Products Company, a firm with a seemingly unrelated product line of toys and custom-molded items.

Since 1968, through two generations, Wilson Industries Inc. has been supporting leading manufactures with unmatched sales expertise.

Due to its position in the marketplace, and its growing presence overseas, Wilson Sporting Goods was purchased by WSGC Holdings, Inc. in 1985.

By 1987, the industrial chemical business had grown large enough to branch off on its own as a separate corporation.

In March 1989, WSGC Holdings merged with Bogey Acquisitions Company.

The revolutionary Hammer 2.7si tennis racquet, introduced in 1990, soon became one of the industry’s top-selling racquets.

The new Conform baseball glove was brought out in 1993, which allowed ballplayers to customize a glove to the contours of their hand.

In 1994, the company introduced the Jet basketball, a leather version made specifically for the outdoor market.

In the field of golf, in 1995 Wilson introduced the Invex driver, a uniquely designed head made from stainless steel and titanium, which almost overnight became the largest selling of all the firm’s golf clubs to date.

Jim Baugh, appointed president in 1996, differed from his predecessors in that he had spent 20 years in the sporting-goods business prior to becoming president, and he was credited with much of the recent successes of Wilson's racquet sports division.

While the golf division had faltered, the team sports product lines performed well—with sales increasing 11 percent in 1999—in part because of the key alliances Wilson had made.

In January 2000 Wilson made an acquisition that further fortified the team sports division: the company acquired DeMarini Sports, maker of premium, high-performance softball and baseball bats.

When tennis equipment sales also began to plummet in early 2003, Amer Group took drastic measures, beginning with the resignation of Wilson CEO Jim Baugh.

In the spring of 2004 Wilson won a minor but significant victory when the Amateur Softball Association issued a ruling that banned many of Wilson's competitors' high-performance bats but allowed Wilson's equipment to remain legal.

Late in 2005, Chris Considine, formerly president of the Team Sports unit, became the president of Wilson Sporting Goods, overseeing both of the operating divisions.

In 2019, former Lululemon founder Chip Wilson purchased 20% of Amer Sports, which also owns Arc'teryx, Salomon, Atomic Ski, Peak Performance.

Wilson introduced its first premium sportswear collection in May 2021.