In the 1980s and early 1990s, Rick Lawes could only find color photos of players like Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, or Jurgen Klinsmann in two places in the Washington DC area: foreign-language newsstands, or inside a monthly catalogue mailed to his house from a small North Carolina company called Eurosport.
In 1994, when soccer washed over US shores, with nine cities hosting the World Cup, the same company negotiated with the national soccer federation to purchase merchandise left behind at stadiums across the country. That same year, with the internet era about to take off, Eurosport founders the Moylan family registered the URL, soccer.com, soon adding an online presence.
Fast forward to several days before Christmas 2014 – about 100m catalogues and millions of packages on doorsteps later – and the company’s footprint on the American soccer landscape is undeniable. If you’re getting cleats or a jersey for Christmas, Santa may well have passed through a 200,000sq-ft warehouse in Mebane, North Carolina.
Lawes, now 51, has gone from playing left-back at Ohio University in 1981 under a certain Bob Bradley to working in communications for DC United, Concacaf and now, MLS, says, “Anyone who has been in the game long enough knows about soccer.com.”
He says the company’s growth has paralleled the expansion of soccer in America. When MLS launched in 1996, the first place he saw photos of the nascent league’s jerseys was in the pages of the same catalogue. “That was a watershed moment,” he recalls. Lawes, who had for years walked through stores shopping for jerseys on trips to Europe, felt, on seeing MLS jerseys for the first time: “Now we have our own.”
Brothers Mike and Brendan Moylan are the nucleus of day-to-day operations at Hillsborough, North Carolina’s Sports Endeavors, Inc, the e-commerce and catalogue’s parent company. Mike, 49 and two years older than his brother, first came up with the idea for a mail-order soccer company as a senior in high school. He went on to play forward at Georgetown University. In 1984, the Moylan family sent the first Eurosport catalogue, featuring Bayern Munich’s Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on the cover, to 6,000 players and friends.
Early days selling soccer gear across the country included trips to soccer tournaments in a Winnebago van filled with catalogues, recalls Lance Long, who joined the company in 1993 after playing center-back for Davidson College.
Brendan Moylan says the 1994 World Cup was a turning point for his business, as it became clear that the sport would only grow in popularity. The company bought truckloads of merchandise from the US Soccer Federation afterward, and began to see, over the next two editions of the World Cup, that more and more sporting goods stores would sell soccer gear and jerseys.
“I’ve even seen Manchester United at Saks Fifth Avenue,” remarks Bernard Frei, managing director, adding that the sport’s growth is motivation for the company to stay ahead of the competition.
Lance Long is 44, but he keeps a touch of the boyhood player in his voice when describing his current job as merchandising director – especially the part where he gets to see new soccer products months before the average fan or player. He recalls seeing the new cleats that include socks about a year before they came on the market this spring. “It was unbelievable -- so innovative, so totally new,” he says, adding, “If you’re a soccer player, and get to see new stuff way before everyone else – who wouldn’t like this?”
Brendan Moylan says soccer is part of the company’s culture. “There’s not a business plan here – we got into it because we love the game,” he says. Frei points out that games involving the USMNT or Champions League will often slow down work, as employees turn to TV screens. “Then we stay later to catch up,” he adds. Employees also play futsal and outdoors games. “That’s what happens when you turn your avocation into a vocation,” Frei says.
As for Christmas this year, Eric Cohen, vice president of operations, says that 1,000 employees have been busy the last few weeks, sending out balls, cleats, jerseys and even the Storelli headguard that Wayne Rooney used after an injury last year. Clint Dempsey and USMNT jerseys are selling briskly, as are those of Chelsea. Demand for two items caught the company by surprise, he says: Colombia and James Rodriguez jerseys.
Still, Moylan says, even with the company’s success, its catalogue has not always been welcome in all quarters. Moylan recalls receiving a letter from the director of a boarding school. He asked the company to stop sending the publication to the boys who studied there, as all it did was distract them from their studies. For some, the spirit of Scrooge is still alive and well.
