Quick Take
Combat's death, Easton's sale, pricing wars. The bat industry's brutal consolidation left five major players from dozens. Behind the scenes of baseball's equipment apocalypse.
At the end of October 2016, Bauer Performance Sports Group (PSG), which acquired Combat Sports Group in 2013 and owns the Easton brand, announced they would be restructuring their debt under bankruptcy laws. PSG will continue to operate under a new debt structure as investors work out the details through bankruptcy proceedings. It is expected that Easton—likely the most potent brand within the Bauer Group—and many other brands under the PSG umbrella will continue business as usual.
UPDATE: It has been several years since COMBAT went bankrupt. However, the Combat brand of bats continues to stay alive with the explicit help of Easton, who carries on the Easton brand and the behind-the-scenes work and support of JustBats.com. Most recently, in 2024, Combat released a single-piece alloy bat called the Sandstorm SPEC-A1. You can find it, of course, directly on Justbat’s site and on a new site called Combatmfg.com, which is connected to Rawling’s Guerilla marketing plan to remake Combat. Such is the life cycle of an industry where the only thing invented is hype.
As per our commentary on the 2016 bankruptcy, we have included what we wrote about it below.
Problem 1: Consolidation & Voluntary Withdrawal
A less quiet change in the market for the 2017 bat season is RIP-IT Sports’ complete withdrawal from the industry. They still exist—or at least their website does. The emails we sent to our contact there didn’t bounce back, but they went unanswered. The site now offers bat bags and fielders’ protective equipment for softball, but the RIP-IT Air and Elite bats we enjoyed using a few months back are no longer available. The helium-filled bat can still be found on Amazon, but that is simply overstock.
As you may have heard, last year, Louisville Slugger sold its brand and operations to the same company that owns DeMarini. Consequently, the Wilson brand (which now operates both Slugger and DeMarini) completely controls both lines. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing by any measurable means today. However, we would guess that the disappearance of Slugger’s 717 Select directly results from DeMarini’s Voodoo two-piece market overlap. We may have lost one of the industry’s favorite bats due to consolidation. (We acknowledge the new 617 SOLO—so the industry taketh and the industry giveth.)
Any large industry will experience consolidation and changes in product offerings throughout its history. However, we feel that the changes in the last 12 months have come at an accelerated pace. It is encouraging that companies like Mizuno and Adidas have entered the metal and composite bat realm with serious offerings. But the loss of RIP-IT and the consolidation of Slugger represent bat knowledge and innovation we won’t soon recover.
But the economy has spoken. And we carry on.
Problem 2: MAP Pricing Problems
Most consumers couldn’t care less about Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP), a contractually agreed-upon minimum amount for vendors to sell a particular item. MAP agreements are alive and well in the bat industry. These agreements keep bat prices painfully high, but that may not be bad.
MAP contracts keep the industry afloat by allowing major vendors to make multi-million-dollar purchases from manufacturers at wholesale pricing discounts. MAP helps guarantee enough margin in the deal for the vendor to keep the lights on and websites running and even offer “free shipping.” These large purchases help manufacturers fund research and development, bat testing facilities, and many other things involved in producing a high-grade bat.
Small vendors can undercut the critical role MAP plays in bolstering an industry focused only on short-term profits by flooding the market with sub-MAP pricing or by eBay sellers flooding the market with sub-MAP pricing. Although we need small vendors to keep bloated selling systems honest, if we want great bats from trusted companies, good service, and legitimate warranties, consumers need a system like MAP that enforces certain pricing structures.
When structures such as MAP are compromised by options like small online vendors and eBay, they don’t help protect the bats and bat brands we once loved, along with the knowledge and technology that disappear with them.
Problem 3: Bat Standards Change
We reserve much of our commentary for the bat standard change in our USAbats standard article. But if you haven’t heard, significant bat changes are coming to Little League starting January 2018. These standards require bats in the BPF 1.15 2¼-inch size to be changed to ones that resemble BBCOR performance in a 2⅝-inch diameter. In other words, much less pop. Within those leagues, the game will fundamentally change. BBCOR performance and BPF 1.15 are really night and day—especially on small fields with slow swing speeds.
The organizing body suggests that the change is being implemented to protect the “integrity of the game”—because, you know, little kids hitting home runs isn’t good for the sport.
We may never know why they are changing the Little League game. Some would argue they are in cahoots with bat manufacturers to simply unload more bats on the unsuspecting public. Cleaning out the thousands of BPF 1.15 youth bats floating in the secondary market would make good business sense. But we aren’t so sure that’s it. People buy bats every year anyway. Others argue the game’s length is the problem—but a time limit or run rule stops most Little League games (outside of the LLWS).
We can be sure, however, it has nothing to do with the “integrity of the game.” Find us a kid in the world whose life wasn’t improved by hitting a home run in Little League. Put him up as your poster child with the caption: “See? Home Runs Aren’t Fun!”
Problem 4: Youth Participation Is… Up!
You will not find a publication that suggests youth sports participation is up. Baseball has been affected, but not nearly as badly as soccer, football, and basketball. However, after falling drastically in the last decade, sports participation is up.
Yet the real issue, as we see it, is more in specialization. Fewer kids play baseball and fastpitch than they did 10 years ago, but we think fall and winter leagues are much more attended than in previous years. Any given 11-year-old is more likely to play only one sport, but they are more likely to play it year-round.
These issues affect the number of bats that are purchased. In our estimation, it is a significant factor in the rise of baseball and fastpitch bat prices, as parents commit all their sports resources to one sport and are, therefore, willing to afford a more expensive bat. And if you are willing to pay for it, you can bet the market will produce it.
With all the ups and downs in the bat industry—thanks to consolidation, voluntary exits, competition at the pricing level, and the new USA bat standards coming out—the folks who produce our favorite weapons at the plate have their work cut out for them. The good news is the market for their high-end, well-produced, and warrantied products is warming up as kids who play ball do so more intensely and will inevitably be seeking a bat as seriously as they are.
