Small company accuses Dick’s Sporting Goods of replacing American-made product with one made in China
BallBack said it spent a decade selling a basketball ball return device to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
BallBack said it spent a decade selling a basketball ball return device to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
BallBack said it spent a decade selling a basketball ball return device to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
A small company is calling out locally-based Dick’s Sporting Goods, accusing the national sports chain of replacing an American-made product with one that is made in China.
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BallBack said it spent a decade selling a basketball ball return device to Dick’s Sporting Goods.
At the Kelly Plastics plant in Belle Plaine, Iowa, 15 employees were producing up to 60,000 BallBack Pro ball returns per year.
About 70 percent of them were sold at Dick's Sporting Goods stores around the country.
When COVID-19 hit, the small company said sales soared.
“It was one of the things that kind of carried us through the first six, seven months of COVID because they were busier than ever,” said Mike McInnis, president of Kelly Plastics.
But last summer, BallBack manager Mitch Smaller said Dick’s Sporting Goods told him they found a new supplier of a similar product at a cheaper price.
He later learned that supplier was actually a Dick’s Sporting Goods subsidiary called Primed which gets the ball returns made in China.
“Primed is their Dick's line. They were manufacturing overseas and they were technically the competitor,” Smaller said, adding that he was stunned to hear that Dick’s Sporting Goods was ending their 10-year partnership.
“Here you have a $12 billion company reporting a 28 percent increase in the fiscal year but yet they feel the need to betray us?” Smaller said.
Action News Investigates asked Dick’s Sporting Goods to respond to BallBack's claims.
A Dick’s Sporting Goods spokesperson replied but only to say they would not comment on the claims.
Now, the manufacturing plant, one of the largest employers in Belle Plaine, is projecting they may need to lay off three to six employees. But the plant owner said the impact could be much greater, affecting other jobs in shipping and supplying raw materials.
“People I don't think really understand the effects when they shut down products to the supply chain and the whole industry within our country,” McInnis said. “Typically, by now we'd be ordering 20,000 pounds of resin. We're only going to order 6,000 because we just are unsure of demand going forward.”
BallBack leaders said the company is struggling to stay afloat and find another place to sell its ball return.
“You know, I'm doing everything I can to try to get back to where we were. But this is a huge impact to our company. Just tremendous,” Smaller said.
“This is a product that is made in the U.S. It gives jobs to people in the U.S. beyond just this factory,” Smaller said. “You're taking those jobs away from people in the U.S. and you're giving it to people in China. How more un-American can that possibly be?”
Smaller said a Ballback-affiliated company holds a patent on its BallBack Pro ball return, but in an email to Smaller, a lawyer for Dick’s Sporting Goods said the Primed ball return does not violate that patent.