A Letter From the President & CEO of SFIA, Todd Smith
Dear SFIA Members,
As we wrap up 2025, I want to extend my sincere gratitude for your continued membership and engagement with SFIA. This year brought several shifts across the global landscape, most notably the impact of tariffs, making planning for your businesses harder and predictability challenging, and yet our industry remained steady. Your resilience, adaptability, innovation, and commitment to strengthening sports and fitness participation never wavered.
Throughout the year, SFIA focused on providing resources that offer your businesses stability in an unpredictable environment, delivering what is essential for our industry in moments like these: strong advocacy, timely and accurate data and insights, and enhanced member services and communications. Below, you will find highlights from our work across 2025.
As we look to 2026, uncertainty will not disappear at the turn of the calendar, but neither will our industry’s momentum. The United States hosting the World Cup marks the beginning of a historic decade of global sporting events coming to our nation. This extended spotlight presents an unprecedented opportunity to expand sports and fitness participation, elevate our industry, and showcase innovation on a world stage.
Through SFIA’s 2034WARD growth campaign, we will work with partners across the industry to ensure we are fully prepared and strongly positioned to maximize this amazing decade. A key focus of this campaign will be expanding sports and fitness participation within communities that have historically faced accessibility barriers. We welcome your engagement and partnership as we advance 2034WARD and unlock the full potential of this opportunity together.
And while 2034WARD is a critical component of SFIA’s long-term strategy, our industry priorities for 2026 remain anchored in a strong advocacy agenda, expanded insights into participation and industry trends, and increased membership resources designed to help your businesses navigate what comes next. Your input is integral to helping us shape these priorities, so please reach out to me anytime to share feedback.
Thank you for all you do for sports and fitness and for your warm welcome in my first calendar year as SFIA’s CEO. It is an honor to be your teammate and work alongside you.
Wishing you a safe and restorative holiday season. Here’s to entering 2026 with clarity, purpose, and confidence as our industry moves 2034WARD together.
-Todd Smith
President & CEO, SFIA
2025 SFIA Highlights
Industry Leadership Highlights
Amid a year of uncertainty, we at SFIA remained steadfast in our commitment to provide members with stability, insight, advocacy, and community.
We were honored to welcome 55 new member companies, representing the breadth and depth of today’s sports and fitness ecosystem.
A defining milestone of 2025 was the launch of our 2034WARD Growth Campaign, a decade-long initiative that will harness the unprecedented lineup of global sporting events coming to the United States — including Summer and Winter Olympic Games and world championships in soccer, rugby, and baseball. Through this campaign, we are working with stakeholders across the industry to boost participation, especially within communities that have historically faced barriers to access, and to ensure this historic decade delivers lasting impact.
To help members fully leverage the value of SFIA, we introduced SFIA’s Membership Playbook, a dynamic, easy-to-use guide to help you make the most of your benefits. We also expanded member value through strategic partnerships, including:
- ExpertVoice, delivering exclusive industry product discounts
- TeamWork Online, connecting SFIA members with premier talent acquisition tools
- Good Sports, transforming excess inventory into opportunity, equipping thousands of children in underserved communities with the gear they need to play and thrive
Adding to our lineup of impactful committees, we launched the Female Athlete Empowerment Committee, dedicated to supporting female athletes of all ages, advancing professional women’s sports, and amplifying women’s leadership across the industry.
Excelerator Program
We proudly closed out year three of the SFIA’s Excelerator program, our professional development initiative for emerging sports and fitness industry leaders. Program highlights include:
- A full cohort of 10 Associates participating from May-October 2025
- Monthly Brunch N Learn sessions featuring Todd Smith, Melissa Harper (Good Sports), David James (MLB), and other industry leaders
- Immersive experiences in New York (NFL, NHL) and Boston (New Balance, Boston Bruins, Good Sports)
- Program made possible by SFIA members adidas, Brooks, BSN Sports, Franklin, New Balance, NFL, NHL, Rawlings, Riddell, and Wilson
The program’s strongest endorsement: 100% of this year’s participants would recommend the program to colleagues, citing the value of both skill development and relationship-building.
Interest in the 2026 class is already high, with limited Associate openings. Applications will open in January 2026.
VetsEXCEL Program
This year, we launched the VetsEXCEL Program to support military veterans transitioning into civilian careers and aspiring to join the sports and fitness industry. The inaugural class of 10 Fellows began in November and will conclude in February 2026. Program highlights include:
- Veterans Day Week Kickoff with Fellows and program contributors
- National recognition in Vets Magazine
- Brunch N Learns, Mentoring, Leadership Labs with Excelerator participants, and Career Prep Sessions with industry talent acquisition leaders
- Supply Chain/Procurement session as part of our first joint VetsEXCEL/Excelerator Leadership Lab led by Ben McIntosh and Nick Langan (Rawlings) and Alyssa Rhodes (BSN Sports)
- Program sponsors include members NHL and Asics, as well as Navy Federal Credit Union and Premier Lacrosse League
Thought Leadership Highlights
2025 Team Sports Conference:
We hosted our 19th Annual Team Sports Conference, in coordination with NFHS and NCAA, bringing together member companies and industry stakeholders to explore trends and insights across the youth and school team sports segment. Attendance grew in 2025, with over 180 participants representing more than 80 companies. Programming featured:
- Nine SFIA Council and Committee meetings
- Networking receptions
- Panel sessions including SFIA’s State of the Industry, NFHS’s State Administrations, NCAA’s sports officiating, sports industry disaster relief, and girls’ and women’s sports empowerment
Start-Up Challenge
We are also currently holding our 9th Annual Start-Up Challenge, which has spotlighted six semifinalists — InSquare, jbrds, Lineman Probs, Ruley AI, UltimateTag, and Sandlotz — who shared bold ideas for the future of sports and fitness. The champion will be selected shortly.
Since its inception, this challenge has become a proven launchpad for innovation, with participating start-ups collectively raising over $350 million and redefining what’s possible in our industry.
Sideline Sessions
New this year, we launched Sideline Sessions, a virtual education series offering timely insights and updates on a wide variety of critical industry topics, including:
- Changes in College Athletics: The House vs. NCAA Settlement Explained
- The Franchise Playbook: Understanding Franchise Opportunities in the Sports & Fitness Industry.
Research and Insights Highlights
We expanded our custom research capabilities through multiple projects, leveraging SFIA’s expertise in participation and youth sports, all in service of helping brands make smarter, data-driven business decisions.
We published six major research reports on participation trends, sport-specific insights, and business intelligence — available to SFIA members at no cost.
New this year, we:
- Cemented industry leadership in pickleball research through a partnership with market leader DUPR to produce the Pickleball Market Playbook, offering comprehensive insights into avid player behavior.
- Delivered SFIA’s inaugural Team Sports Parents’ Insights Report, providing in-depth consumer perspectives directly from parents of youth team sports participants.
- Debuted the First Half Gameplan Report, featuring current-year participation figures (January–June 2025) across 30 sports.
Throughout the year, we provided tailored data presentations and analyses to member companies, informing product development, business planning, and forecasting, and spoke at major industry events to reinforce SFIA research as the gold standard. To that end, we also:
- Maintained SFIA’s Participation Dashboard to enable easy comparisons of sport-specific participation rates with the click of a mouse.
- Earned daily recognition in major media outlets, with SFIA research cited and featured nearly 500 times by publications such as The New York Times, TIME Magazine, ABC News, CNBC, Bloomberg, Axios, Forbes, USA Today, MLB, NBA, CNN, Yahoo, AP, and more.
We continued leadership in the Physical Activity Council (PAC) and collaboration with The Aspen Institute’s Project Play to measure national progress and participation in physical activity.
On December 9, we launched our fourth Member Satisfaction Survey. We welcome your feedback to help us strengthen SFIA membership benefits and services.
Government Affairs and Strategic Advocacy Highlights
As the leading voice of the industry at the federal level, we advocated for sports and fitness participation, safety, and industry growth by supporting and endorsing:
- The House passage of the PHIT Act
- The Youth Sports Facilities Act
- The Protecting Student Athletes from Concussions Act
We met with 50+ Members of Congress and staff on SFIA’s key legislative priorities and advanced our 2034WARD initiative goals through engagement with:
- White House World Cup Task Force
- President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition
- Congressional Youth Sports Caucus
- Congressional Soccer Caucus
- America 250
- U.S. Small Business Administration leadership
Additionally, we worked tirelessly to reduce barriers to drive economic growth by:
- Submitting a letter to the Administration on behalf of SFIA members and the sports and fitness industry regarding the mitigation of tariffs.
- Filing formal comments with:
– U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security in response to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff inclusions, ensuring that sports and fitness goods are excluded from additional tariffs.
– U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, urging the agency to recognize exercise and sports participation as essential, evidence-based tools for the prevention and management of chronic disease. In response to joint advocacy efforts from SFIA and our partners, CMS issued a policy change to formally recognize physical activity as an important part of care in the prevention and chronic disease management.
– U.S. Trade Representative in support of the Administration’s proposal to suspend the actions under the Section 301 Investigation into China’s Targeting of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sectors for Dominance.
Throughout the year, we kept members informed about ongoing tariff developments through three members-only webinars and participated in member-hosted events on the topic, as well.
We also partnered with the Congressional Sports for Charity on the first-ever Congressional Pickleball Game and hosted a Leadership Roundtable leading up to the World Cup Draw in Washington, D.C. with diverse stakeholders, including the private and public sectors, laying the groundwork for a decade of collective action through sports and fitness.
Standards & Compliance Highlights
To ensure fair play and player safety, we published the Arm Sleeve Coverings Standard for Football Game Play for the 27/28 football season at the high school level. The standard specifies the amount of grip enhancement an arm covering may have, similar to the existing SFIA Football Glove Standard.
We also expanded the SFIA Football Glove Standard, which now has more than 30 licensed companies and continues to grow. With our certification partner, Exponent, we continue to refine testing protocols to ensure fairness and consistency.
Through our representation with NOCSAE, we created a Technical Advisory Committee of licensees to ensure evolving standards remain aligned with real-world manufacturing capabilities.
We continued to work with our members through our sports-specific councils in football, baseball/softball, lacrosse, volleyball, soccer, and golf to ensure equipment manufacturers are aware of ongoing developments and to discuss pressing industry topics.