Sporting and Athletic Goods Manufacturing (U.S.) — Level Primer

NAICS 2022 code 33992 — the makers of sports gear: golf clubs and balls, tennis and pickleball rackets, baseball bats and gloves, exercise machines, fishing tackle, skis, archery equipment, protective helmets and pads, skates, surfboards, wet suits, and playground and gym equipment.

Read this first: 33992 is a single-child pass-through. At the U.S. 5-digit (NAICS industry) level it contains exactly one 6-digit national industry — 339920 — and the two are, for all practical purposes, the same industry with the same companies and the same numbers. This page gives the rollup figures and the shape of the business. For the full treatment — the complete investable universe, unit economics, demand drivers, regulation and outlook — see the 339920 primer.

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1. Overview

This is a consumer-durables manufacturing industry. Owners make money by designing branded equipment, selling units at a markup over what they cost to build, and pushing customers to trade up and replace. It is discretionary — people buy new drivers, treadmills and rackets when they feel good about their finances — so it rises and falls with the economy and with sports-participation fads.[1]

Two features make it unusual for investors. First, it is small and fragmented: U.S. factories in this code ship roughly $11–12 billion a year across about 1,600 establishments, and no single firm controls much of it. (The two federal series differ by vintage and method: the 2022 Economic Census reported $11.06 billion in receipts, while the 2023 Annual Integrated Economic Survey reported $11.58 billion in sales — use the range, not a single point.)[1][2] Second, the brand names most people know are far bigger than the U.S. manufacturing footprint, because most gear sold in America is made in Asia — so the federal manufacturing statistics badly understate the money in the business (see Section 3).[12]

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2. What's inside — and why this level equals its one child

At the 5-digit level, U.S. NAICS 33992 breaks into a single 6-digit national industry:

Because there is only one child, 33992 and 339920 describe the same set of factories and firms — the level exists purely as a numbering tier, not as a broader grouping. Everything true of 339920 is true of 33992.

In scope: sporting and athletic goods except apparel and footwear — golf and tennis goods, baseball/football/hockey gear, exercise and gym machines, fishing tackle, skis and snowboards, archery, billiards and bowling, playground equipment, skates, surfboards, wet suits and above-ground pools.[3] Explicitly excluded (so you don't double-count): athletic apparel → NAICS 315 (which is why Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and Lululemon are not here); footwear → 316210; bicycles → 336991; firearms and ammunition → 33299; toys and games → 339930; tents, backpacks and sleeping bags sewn from purchased fabrics → textile product mills; and retailers/wholesalers (Dick's Sporting Goods, Academy), which sit in trade codes, not manufacturing.[3]

One structural caveat worth carrying up to this level. The code bundles genuinely different production processes — polymer compounding and molding for golf balls, casting and forging for club heads, fabricated metal plus electronics and upholstery for exercise machines — and almost every sizeable firm runs a hybrid model. Acushnet operates three golf-ball plants (two U.S., one Thailand) but uses regional club-assembly sites and third parties for footwear, apparel and gear; Escalade combines U.S. production with contract-manufactured imports from South America and Asia.[15][22] A brand can therefore be economically exposed to this industry without much of its physical output landing in a U.S. establishment classified here — which is the same fact that drives the undercount in Section 3.

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3. Size (this level's rollup figures + undercount caveat)

Ground-truth federal figures for NAICS 33992 (from our ingested stats), which — as expected for a single-child level — equal the 339920 figures:

That works out to average pay near $65,000 per employee and average receipts around $7 million per firm.[1] The HHI (a standard concentration score where anything under 1,500 is "unconcentrated") of 182 confirms a fragmented industry with no dominant player.[1]

The undercount — important. These numbers count only goods made in U.S. establishments, and they dramatically understate the U.S. sporting-goods market and the size of the brands, for two reasons: (1) most gear is imported — of roughly $10.3 billion of sporting goods imported in 2024, about 61% came from China alone, a flow comparable to total domestic output;[12] and (2) brand owners who outsource production are often classified as wholesalers, not manufacturers, pulling their revenue out of this code. Treat the $11–12 billion as "what the U.S. still physically builds," not "how big the industry is."

Handle the bigger market numbers carefully. Broader measures exist and are legitimate in their own frame, but they are not this code: SFIA put 2025 U.S. wholesale sales at nearly $130 billion across equipment, athletic footwear, sports apparel and licensed merchandise — most of which sits in apparel, footwear and trade codes, not 33992;[6] and the global sporting-goods market is near $180 billion.[5] Neither should be conflated with the manufacturing figures above.

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4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

Because the level is its one child, value concentrates exactly where 339920 says it does — see that primer for the full company table. In brief:

• Public pure-plays are thin, and value clusters in golf and connected fitness. The largest listed name is Amer Sports (NYSE: AS, ~$5.2B revenue in 2024), but it is foreign-domiciled, Anta-consortium-controlled and part-apparel — its equipment-relevant Ball & Racquet segment alone was $1.3 billion in 2025.[13][14] Then Acushnet (NYSE: GOLF, ~$2.6B in 2025),[15] Peloton (Nasdaq: PTON, ~$2.5B in FY2025),[18] and Callaway Golf Company (NYSE: CALY, ~$2.1B in 2025 continuing operations) — formerly Topgolf Callaway (MODG), which sold 60% of Topgolf/Toptracer effective January 2026 for ~$800M net proceeds, kept a minority interest and reverted to the CALY ticker.[16][17] Below them sit sub-$0.6B diversified names: Johnson Outdoors (Nasdaq: JOUT), Clarus (Nasdaq: CLAR) and Escalade (Nasdaq: ESCA).[19][20][21]
• Private ownership is where the depth is: private-equity platforms (KPS's Life Fitness, Seidler's Rawlings/Easton, Centroid's TaylorMade, Sycamore's Pure Fishing, Strategic Value Partners' Revelyst, plus iFIT) and family-controlled globals (Decathlon), atop a long tail of ~1,500 small makers.[1][23][24][25][26][27]
• Names people wrongly assume belong here: Nike/Adidas/Under Armour/Lululemon (apparel/footwear), Dick's (retail), Garmin (electronics), YETI (drinkware), Brunswick (marine) — all in other codes.

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5. How the money works

A unit-economics-plus-brand model: revenue is units × average selling price, and profit is the markup over materials, labor and freight. Hard-goods gross margins span a wider band than a single average suggests — roughly 27–48%, tracking brand positioning: Acushnet ~48% at the premium end, Escalade ~27% in commodity-ish gear.[15][22] The durable moats are brand, patents and pro/tour validation (Titleist in golf balls, Rawlings in baseball), which support premium pricing.[23] Mix matters as much as margin: consumables and short-replacement-cycle items make earnings more resilient than one-off durables — golf balls and gloves were roughly 40% of Acushnet's 2025 sales, versus large infrequent purchases like home gyms.[15] Product cycles (new driver models, seasonal launches) manufacture replacement demand, and governing bodies can reset the roadmap: USGA's revised golf-ball testing begins with the 2028 conformity cycle.[28] Input costs (titanium, carbon fiber, aluminum, resin, urethane, ocean freight, duties and tariffs) and discretionary, cyclical demand move factory utilization, while retailer "sell-in versus sell-through" can swing reported revenue independent of end demand. The most valuable twist is turning hardware into recurring revenue — Peloton's fitness subscriptions run ~69% gross margin, supply about two-thirds of revenue, and rest on ~2.9 million connected-fitness subscriptions.[18] Full detail is in the 339920 primer.

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6. Demand drivers

• Sports and fitness participation — SFIA reports 247.1 million Americans (about 80%) were active in 2024, up ~25 million since 2019; its 2026 report puts 2025 participation at 250 million, while noting most Americans still fall short of federal activity guidelines.[7][8]
• Golf momentum — more than 500 million rounds were played annually at U.S. courses in every year from 2020 through 2025, running 21% above the five-year pre-pandemic average, with the golfer base up for seven straight years.[9][15]
• Racket sports — pickleball hit 19.8 million players in 2024, up 45.8% in one year;[7] U.S. tennis reached 27.3 million players in 2025, 54% above 2019, with 616 million-plus play occasions.[10]
• Outdoor — 183.2 million Americans participated in outdoor activities, nearly 30 million more than in 2019 — though participation is growing faster than outings, so casual entrants may buy less gear per head than core users.[11]
• Youth sports — 65% of kids aged 6–17 played a sport in 2024 (a record), with sharply higher family spending.[7]
• Health/wellness and strength training (every strength activity SFIA tracks grew in 2024), plus discretionary income and confidence, technology (connected fitness), weather/seasonality and fashion refresh cycles.[7]

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7. Regulation

Mostly standards-based, not heavy licensing. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is the main watchdog; one genuinely mandatory rule matters — since 1999 all bicycle helmets sold in the U.S. must meet the federal performance, testing, certification and labeling requirements of 16 CFR Part 1203 — while most other gear follows voluntary consensus standards (ASTM International specs such as ASTM F1487 for playground equipment and the F08.53 helmet standards; NOCSAE for football helmets) that schools, states and insurers often require in practice.[29] Recall exposure is real rather than theoretical: a single 2025 helmet action covered about 201,200 U.S. units for insufficient crash protection.[30] The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) adds lead/phthalate limits on youth equipment. Two niche federal excise taxes are real cost lines: 10% on sport-fishing equipment (Dingell-Johnson) and 11% on archery equipment (Pittman-Robertson), collected at the manufacturer level to fund conservation.[31] Because ~61% of imports come from China, tariffs (Section 301 and newer) effectively regulate margins for the whole category — Acushnet and Callaway both attributed 2025 gross-margin pressure to tariff measures — and product-liability/concussion litigation is a standing risk.[12][15][16]

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8. Consolidation

Fragmented in aggregate but concentrated by sub-category — the top four firms hold only ~21% of receipts,[1] yet individual niches are dominated by one or two brands (golf balls: Titleist; football helmets: Riddell; baseball: Rawlings and Wilson).[23] The strategic pattern is roll-up within a sport (Amer Sports bundles Wilson, Louisville Slugger, DeMarini and Atomic; Rawlings absorbed Easton), and private equity is highly active: KPS owns Life Fitness, Seidler owns Rawlings, Centroid owns TaylorMade, Sycamore owns Pure Fishing, and Strategic Value Partners took Revelyst — the outdoor/sporting half of the 2024 Vista Outdoor breakup — private for $1.125 billion in January 2025.[23][24][25][26][27] Ownership is increasingly cross-border (an Anta-led Chinese consortium controls Amer Sports).[13] Pressure also runs along the channel: retail is consolidating around Dick's Sporting Goods, squeezing supplier terms, while direct-to-consumer, Amazon and Decathlon's vertical private-label model let brands bypass wholesalers. Portfolio shuffling is constant — Escalade bought Brunswick Billiards out of the Life Fitness stable; Callaway divested its Topgolf majority stake.[24][17]

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9. Risks

• Cyclical, discretionary demand — recessions and weak confidence hit equipment sales hard.[1]
• Tariff and supply-chain exposure — heavy China sourcing (~61% of imports) makes margins hostage to trade policy and freight, as Acushnet's and Callaway's 2025 margin commentary shows; mitigation via pricing and country-of-origin shifts takes time, and reshoring at scale is unlikely on labor costs.[12][15][16]
• Supplier concentration — specialized polymers, forged/cast components, electronics and performance fabrics come from a narrow base and need lengthy qualification.[15]
• Fad and fashion risk — Peloton's pandemic boom-bust is the cautionary tale; a category like pickleball could plateau.[18][7]
• Governing-body rule changes — USGA's 2028 golf-ball testing shift can strand product roadmaps.[28]
• Inventory/destocking whipsaw, product liability and recalls,[30] thin pricing power in commodity gear (against vertically integrated rivals like Decathlon), retailer concentration, counterfeiting, loss of league licenses or endorsements, and input-cost inflation.

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10. How to invest & outlook

Public routes mean buying the pure-plays — golf (GOLF for premium equipment and consumables; CALY for clubs, balls and golf softgoods plus a residual Topgolf minority), connected fitness (PTON) and diversified equipment (JOUT, CLAR, ESCA), with AS for global racket/snow exposure.[13][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Be candid about the limits: there is no dedicated U.S. sporting-goods-manufacturing ETF, the list is short and mostly small-cap, and much "sporting goods" exposure in the market actually sits in apparel/footwear (Nike) or retail (Dick's). Private routes are where the depth is — PE-owned platforms, family-owned globals, and a long tail of ~1,500 small manufacturers that is classic lower-middle-market roll-up territory.[1] The diligence priority at any size is the same: separate brand EBITDA from factory EBITDA, map tariff and country-of-origin exposure by SKU, test retailer concentration, normalize pandemic-era inventory swings, and distinguish repeat-purchase consumables from long-lived durables.

Outlook. The structural backdrop looks favorable — record participation, durable youth-sports and wellness trends, and premiumization support pricing — while golf and racket-sport momentum is measurable rather than anecdotal (rounds 21% above pre-pandemic; tennis up 54% since 2019).[7][9][10] The near-term swing factors are tariffs and freight, discretionary softness, and post-pandemic fitness normalization, with connected fitness stabilizing by leaning on high-margin subscriptions rather than hardware.[12][18] The likeliest path is steady low-single-digit domestic growth with continued consolidation, rather than a domestic manufacturing revival, because the economics still favor designing in the U.S. and building abroad.

For the full company table, deeper economics, and the complete sources, see the 339920 primer — of which this level is a one-to-one rollup.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census 2022 and County Business Patterns 2023 — NAICS 339920 / 33992 Sporting and Athletic Goods Manufacturing (receipts, establishments, employment, payroll, firms, concentration ratios, HHI), 2022–2023. https://data.census.gov/profile/339920_-_Sporting_and_athletic_goods_manufacturing?n=339920
2. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Integrated Economic Survey 2023 — NAICS 339920 ($11.579B sales/revenue), 2023. https://data.census.gov/table/AIESINVTIMESERIES.AIES00INV?codeset=naics~339920&g=010XX00US
3. U.S. Census Bureau / NAICS Association, NAICS 339920 definition and exclusions (apparel 315, footwear 316210, bicycles 336991, small arms 33299), 2022. https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=339920&input=339920&year=2022
4. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards — NAICS 339920 (750 employees), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
5. Grata / IBISWorld, Market Overview: Sporting and Athletic Goods Manufacturing (NAICS 339920); global sporting-goods market context, 2025. https://grata.com/market-research/339920-sporting-athletic-goods-manufacturing
6. Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), Sporting goods industry reaches nearly $130B (wholesale sales across equipment, footwear, apparel, licensed merchandise), 2026. https://sfia.org/resources/new-sfia-report-sporting-goods-industry-reaches-nearly-130b-amid-trade-and-tariff-pressures/
7. Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), 2024 U.S. Topline Participation Report (247.1M active Americans; pickleball 19.8M, +45.8%; youth 65%), 2025. https://sfia.org/resources/sfias-topline-participation-report-shows-247-1-million-americans-were-active-in-2024/
8. Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), 2026 Media Takeaways (250M Americans participating in 2025), 2026. https://sfia.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/SFIA_2026_Media_Takeaways.pdf
9. National Golf Foundation, Golf Industry Research — Industry Facts (500M+ annual rounds 2020–2025; 21% above pre-pandemic average), 2025. https://www.ngf.org/the-clubhouse/golf-industry-research/
10. USTA, Tennis participation continues to surge (27.3M players in 2025; 54% above 2019; 616M+ play occasions), 2025. https://www.usta.com/en/home/stay-current/national/tennis-participation-continues-to-surge-with-six-consecutive-yea.html
11. Outdoor Industry Association, Outdoorist June 2026 (183.2M Americans participating; +30M since 2019), 2026. https://outdoorindustry.org/article/outdoorist-june-2026/
12. ESPN, How the sporting goods industry is bracing for tariffs ($10.3B imports; ~61% from China), 2025. https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/44223967/tariffs-trump-sporting-goods-equipment-merchandise
13. Amer Sports, Inc., Full-Year 2024 Results (revenue ~$5.18B), SEC Form 6-K, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1988894/000162828025007522/pressreleaseq424.htm; Sportico, Amer Sports IPO / Anta-led ownership, 2024. https://www.sportico.com/business/finance/2024/billionaire-chip-wilson-amer-sports-1234763688/
14. Amer Sports, Inc., 2025 Form 20-F (Ball & Racquet segment $1.307B), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1988894/000198889426000004/as-20251231.htm
15. Acushnet Holdings Corp., 2025 Form 10-K (revenue $2.559B; gross margin ~47.7%; golf balls/gloves ~40% of sales; materials and manufacturing footprint; tariff impact), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1672013/000167201326000057/golf-20251231.htm
16. Callaway Golf Company, 2025 Form 10-K (continuing-business sales $2.060B; 42.1% gross margin; tariff impact), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/837465/000083746526000010/modg-20251231.htm
17. Callaway Golf Company, Form 8-K re: Topgolf divestiture and name change (60% Topgolf sale effective January 1, 2026; ~$800M net proceeds; ticker to CALY), 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/837465/000083746526000003/modg-20260101.htm; Callaway press release, https://callawaygolf.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/topgolf-callaway-brands-officially-changes-its-name-back
18. Peloton Interactive, Inc., Fiscal 2025 Form 10-K (revenue ~$2.49B; subscriptions ~67% of revenue at ~69% gross margin; 2.9M connected-fitness subscriptions), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1639825/000163982525000138/pton-20250630.htm
19. Johnson Outdoors Inc., Fiscal Year 2024 Results (revenue $592.8M), 2024. https://www.johnsonoutdoors.com/us/fy24q4earnings
20. Clarus Corporation, Full Year 2024 Results (revenue $264.3M), 2025. https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/clar/revenue/
21. Escalade, Inc., Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results (revenue ~$0.25B), PR Newswire, 2025. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/escalade-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2024-results-302385294.html
22. Escalade, Inc., 2025 Form 10-K (hybrid U.S./contract manufacturing; ~27% gross margin), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/33488/000143774926006094/esca20251231_10k.htm
23. SGB Media, Rawlings acquires Easton; MLB player brand share (Rawlings 39%, Wilson 29%), 2020. https://sgbonline.com/rawlings-to-become-even-bigger-baseball-powerhouse-with-easton-acquisition/; Forbes, Seidler Equity Partners / MLB acquire Rawlings, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2018/12/07/chinese-to-own-rights-to-major-league-baseballs-most-popular-bats-and-gloves/
24. KPS Capital Partners, Acquisition of Brunswick's fitness business incl. Life Fitness ($490M), 2019. https://kpsfund.com/investments/life-fitness/; PR Newswire, Escalade completes acquisition of Brunswick Billiards from Life Fitness, 2022. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/escalade-completes-acquisition-of-the-assets-of-the-brunswick-billiards-business-from-life-fitness-llc-301465765.html
25. Golf Digest, TaylorMade to be acquired by Korean investment firm (Centroid Investment Partners), 2021. https://www.golfdigest.com/story/taylormade-to-be-acquired-by-korean-investment-firm
26. PR Newswire, Sycamore Partners completes acquisition of Pure Fishing, 2018. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sycamore-partners-completes-acquisition-of-pure-fishing-300774034.html
27. Revelyst, Inc., Form 8-K re: Strategic Value Partners acquisition ($1.125B, January 2025), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1943705/000095015725000018/form8-k.htm; Powersports Business, Vista Outdoor splits in two, 2024. https://powersportsbusiness.com/top-stories/2024/10/10/vista-outdoor-splits-in-two-for-3-4-billion-sale/
28. USGA, Golf Ball Revised Testing Guidelines — Frequently Asked Questions (2028 conformity cycle; recreational transition through 2030), 2025. https://digital-pd.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/advancing-the-game/distance-insights/golf-ball-revised-testing-guidelines--frequently-asked-questions.html
29. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Bicycle Helmet Business Guidance (16 CFR Part 1203); Public Playground Equipment (ASTM F1487); Sports/Recreational Helmets (ASTM F08.53), 2025. https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Business-Guidance/Bicycle-Helmets
30. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 2025 Helmet Recall (201,200 units), 2025. https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2025/509-Recalls-Helmets-Due-to-Risk-of-Head-Injury
31. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service / Wikipedia, Pittman-Robertson (11% archery) and Dingell-Johnson (10% sport-fishing equipment) manufacturer excise taxes, 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittman%E2%80%93Robertson_Federal_Aid_in_Wildlife_Restoration_Act