More Videos
- Lacoste Runs Full Page Ad With Roddick Loss
- Is Andy’s Mojo Back? We Asked Him
- Lance, Please Back Out Of Tour
- Singh Not Wearing Stanford At Tournament
- Companies Behind Murray Have a Lot To Gain
- Hall Of Fame Suit Lists Revealing Numbers
- Sports Poker Event Trying To Buck Recession
- Billy Mays — He Left the World Knowing He Sold It
- NBA Draft: By The Numbers
- Vijay Singh Offers To Pay Stanford's Bail
RSS FEED
|
CNBC'S MOST SHARED
- March Lows Will Hold — So Buy Equities: Strategists
- Lacoste Runs Full Page Ad With Roddick Loss
- Brandt: Bing, The Little Search Engine That Couldn't
- 5-Star Manager's 5 Top Stocks
- Hey, What's Up Doc?
- Busch: Summertime Blues Hits Investors
- Chadwick: Recession and Scandals Pave the Way for Romney 2012
- Art Cashin: The S&P's 'Head and Shoulders' Number
- Michael Jackson: Death And Taxes
- Second Half: Wait For Pullbacks, Then Buy the Best
- Discover Shares Fall on Word of Stock Offering
- California General Obligation Bond Rating Cut
- GM to Get Final $20 Billlion From US This Year
- Goldman Sees No Harm From Computer Programmer
- World Trade Center Developer Threatens Arbitration
- The Weirdest Currencies on Earth
- Judge Gives Control of Jackson Estate to Executors
- Recession Special: Wine Cheaper Than Water!
Text Size 
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?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes