Worries about the possible initiation of tariffs this weekend on imports from Canada, China and Mexico have been subdued in Wall Street, partly out of hopes they won’t be imposed. And while for sports it’s difficult to see how new levies on foreign goods can have any effect, at least at first, there are longer-term risks to the industry if higher tariffs are here to stay.
“If you look at consumers, like me, who are buying stuff for their kids to play sports, costs are going to go up. If you look at professional sports, equipment is such small part of their budget they probably won’t feel it,” Sasha Tomic, an economics dean and professor at Boston College, said on a phone call. “The better question is what will happen to the sometimes already fragile enforcement of IP abroad. Would China be even less concerned with enforcing U.S. intellectual property if we were in a trade war?”
Intellectual property rights have already been an issue for sports, especially the NBA, which has taken China to task with world bodies over cybersquatting on NBA domain names and with domestic courts over rampant counterfeit goods. Other leagues face a raft of similar problems. MLB, for instance, has seen a surge in popularity in China as F&F, an officially licensed Korean retailer, has opened hundreds of stores in China featuring everything from Yankees-branded nail polish to Dodgers bathing suits. But in recent months, travelers have reported seeing knock-off MLBUSA stores in Chinese malls. Even high-end collector’s items are at risk from counterfeits—hundreds of fake, Chinese-made Super Bowl rings have been seized in the U.S. since at least 2019, according to various news reports. “Even as badly as they’re enforcing them today, maybe the Chinese elect not to enforce them at all, and that could hurt people who rely on licensed merchandise,” Tomic said.
A more immediate issue could be the higher cost of sporting goods for consumers, although the effect may be more muted than you might expect. For one, Mexico and Canada don’t send a significant amount of sports equipment into the U.S.—a total of $746 million in the most recent year available, almost evenly split between the two countries, according to data compiled by the Observatory of Economic Complexity, which gathers trade data from official sources. By comparison, the U.S. sent $222 million of sporting goods to its neighbors, also evenly split.
The vast majority of the $10.3 billion of sporting goods imported into the U.S. last year comes from China, $6.27 billion. The most-likely brands to be hurt: Wilson and Louisville Slugger, both owned by Amer Sports. Amer told investors that China-sourced goods sold into the U.S. account for 10% to 12% of its $5.1 billion annual sales. “Our ball & racquet segment would be most impacted, predominantly tennis rackets, baseball bats and basketball,” chief financial officer Andrew Page said on a November investor call.
Probably less exposed are sneaker and athletic clothing makers. The large brands have been shifting sourcing away from China, because the country has been under a 25% tariff since the first Trump administration. “Under Armour seven, eight years ago, 46% [of its supply chain] came from China, now it’s more like 17%,” Tomic said. Similarly, Nike still sources about 25% of its supply chain from China globally, but has shifted the origin of what it ships into the U.S. to largely avoid China tariffs, according to CFRA analyst Zachary Warring. A third heavyweight, Adidas, told investors in July it has largely shifted sourcing of U.S. goods away from China to sidestep tariffs.
That doesn’t mean a trade war won’t hurt U.S. brands. China is “a must-win market,” Under Armour’s Asia-Pacific managing director Jason Archer told investors in December. Similarly, Wall Street is eying China as the way Nike can revive choppy sales trends of late. Both would be hurt by a trade war, noted Jefferies analyst Randal Konik in an end-of-year note, since risks include “U.S. relations with China deteriorating markedly, leading to Chinese consumers favoring domestic brands over international brands.”
Perhaps the biggest risk to sports is the cost to American consumers. Economist and Wall Street analyst consensus is that tariffs raise costs to the U.S. consumers, since they are levied on the imports upon arrival in the U.S., costs of which are passed on to buyers. Indeed, Amer CFO Page noted, “Price increases will be the primary tool we utilize should tariffs occur.”
How much companies pass on to consumers is a matter of some debate, though. There’s evidence that not all the existing tariffs have been passed along to consumers. The right-leaning Tax Foundation estimates the proposed tariffs will effectively be a $625 yearly tax on American households, before accounting for expected losses in income, price competition in the marketplace and lower domestic manufacturing output stemming from tariffs on imported supplies. Dutch bank ING estimates a price hike on every U.S. resident as high as $2,400 annually if the top end of Trump’s proposals, including a 60% tariff on China, were implemented.
High costs to consumers means less discretionary income for spending on tickets, merch and media subscriptions. Consumer price index data dating to before the pandemic shows that the prices of sports tickets, sporting goods and sports equipment sharply lagged the overall cost increases for consumers from December 2019 through November 2024, while the cost of cable and streaming also lagged but was much closer to overall inflation in the period. That’s a positive in one way—sports didn’t contribute as much to cost increases to consumers as other factors—but also suggests consumers could be cutting back on sports spending as their costs rise, since if their sports demand was less changeable, prices would have kept pace with overall inflation. Still, until the new round of tariffs are put in place, little is certain.
“There is a lot of talk, whack-a-mole kind of talk—will he put tariffs on Colombia, Canada, Mexico, China?” Tomic said. “And will he really do it? Because there is no way to impose a tariff without hurting the United States. No way.”
