Today's obscure sports brand of the day is Gared Sports (Motto: "Where your game is our business!).

If you haven't heard of them, don't worry, neither did I.

Yesterday, while I was at the Garden in Boston, I saw a man putting up new nets. The "Net Changer" told me they now change the nets every game.

Source: garedsports.com Gared Sports

So while he was changing a net, I wandered over to the scraps and saw that it was made by a company called Gared Sports.

Later in the day, I found myself under the rim. I looked up and on the part of the rim that connects it to the backboard, I saw "Gared Sports" and a phone number.

I assume this was a maintenance number, but I thought it was pretty funny the number was there because only the players can see it.

So here's the deal. You haven't heard of Gared because they don't have a deal with the NBA, which prevents the company from advertising (aside from a brief mention on the company Web site). But the NBA has been using their backboards and rims since the mid-80's.

According to the rules, teams must change their rims every year and their backboards every five years. That's undoubtedly been a good business for Gared. But they're kind of boxed in from a publicity standpoint because the NBA's sponsor is Spalding, which owns Huffy, maker of backboards sold at retail.

Questions?  Comments?