After 21 Years, Game Is Over for The Super Show

After more than two decades of record-breaking highs and recent disheartening lows, the sporting goods industry's The Super Show will take place in Orlando this week for the last time.

The show's owner, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Assn., this month announced the show's demise and simultaneously introduced two smaller shows.

Beginning in 2007, the Washington, D.C.-based group will hold the SGMA Spring Market in Las Vegas and SGMA Fall Market on the East Coast. The two shows, to be produced by Universal Event Management, will cater to seasonal selling cycles.

The end of The Super Show also means an end to SGMA's 21-year relationship with longtime show management firm Communications & Show Management, which had a 25-year contract with SGMA. The Jan. 23–25 show will complete SGMA's three-year contract with the Orange County Convention Center.

Hardy Katz, vice president of CSM, deferred comment about the tradeshow's demise to SGMA.

No. 12 on the Tradeshow Week 200, the show has shrunk substantially over the last few years, due primarily to the splintering of the sporting goods industry.

The Super Show peaked in 1999, ranking No. 2 on the TSW 200, and spanning nearly 1.4 million net square feet of Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center and Georgia Dome, with 3,232 exhibiting companies and 65,495 attendees. The 2005 show, however, encompassed 250,000 net sq. ft., with about 700 exhibiting firms and 20,000 attendees.

SGMA declined to project show attendance for this year, but said it expects close to 500 exhibiting companies.

There are many reasons for the end of The Super Show. The show's retailer and exhibitor bases have changed dramatically. The onslaught of big-box chain stores has forced some regional chains to close their doors, or at least cut back on expenses. Industry consolidation has affected the show's exhibitors. For example, in recent months adidas announced that it will purchase Reebok.

Other reasons for The Super Show's demise, noted Robert Carr, editor of SGB's Inside Sporting Goods, are:

• consolidation of license apparel companies;
• crossover appeal of The World Shoe Assn. Show and MAGIC Marketplace;
• competition with ispo, a series of global sports community shows (one of which takes place in Munich, Germany, Jan. 29–Feb. 1) that did a better job of keeping up with industry changes than The Super Show has;
• lack of support from SGMA board members. (For example, SGMA board member Under Armour won't exhibit at this week's show.)

SGMA President and CEO Tom Cove said The Super Show "was a wonderful and incredibly successful event for many, many years. It ran its course. There's a sort of melancholy about it."

He acknowledged the association was at least partly to blame. "Over time, the value proposition changed and The Super Show didn't change with it," he said.

Cove also noted that because the industry's major retailers and manufacturers are "with each other every day," they "are not the foundation for a national tradeshow as they once were."

The Super Show's last hurrah will be "a merciful ending," Carr said.

Its end was a long time coming, he said. "The show refused to rebrand itself. It insisted on being The Super Show when it was far from being super anymore."

Carr said his publication used to send as many as 20 staff members to exhibit at and attend the show. "We just brought in an army."

This year, four or five magazine representatives planned to attend. "And most of us are leaving early," he added.

Claude Rorabaugh, director of marketing for Camas, Wash.-based Inventist, said The Super Show has been worthwhile for his firm in the few years it exhibited there.

However, he added, the demise of an event like The Super Show isn't surprising. "I've seen that happen with other shows in the past. A lot of shows die because of entropy. They get really fat and they forget their members and who built the show. I think it's probably a good thing that they do the two smaller shows."

When Cove took over the reins of the association from former head John Riddle in early 2005, he said, "Looming was the question, 'What are you going to do about The Super Show?'"

Previously, Cove spent 12 years as vice president of government relations for the group.

Cove noted, "We spent a lot of time looking at what the industry needed and, frankly, we looked at whether we should be in the tradeshow industry."

What resulted — the two shows — will "adapt to industry needs," he said, adding that the business model for the new shows will create a value proposition for "the smaller guys."

The spring show will take place June 11–13, 2007, at Las Vegas' Sands Expo & Convention Center. UEM Chairman and CEO Charlie Greco expects the show to span 150,000 net sq. ft. and attract up to 25,000 attendees. The fall show will take place in October 2007. Both will be "very conference-intensive," Greco added.

Andrea Cernich, SGMA director of communications, said association research indicates that "manufacturers still need and want a forum to network and convene as a community."

SGMA last year moved from North Palm Beach, Fla.

Greco, a former IDG World Expo president and CEO, said UEM is "excited to contribute our passion and experience as SGMA creates new value and opportunity for its members."

The Braintree, Mass.-based firm (which recently opened a Las Vegas office) served as SGMA's tradeshow consultant firm for two years.

North Miami, Fla.-based Communications & Show Management is launching Sports License & Entertainment Marketplace Nov. 9–11 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Katz noted.

The Super Show had helped make January the busiest month for the OCCC in recent years. The number of January shows for the venue looks to remain constant next year, with SHOT SHOW/Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade Show (this year in February in Las Vegas) taking place at the OCCC Jan. 11–14, 2007.