Play It Again Sports vs Challenger sports Franchise Comparison

Founded in 1983, Play It Again Sports buys and sells new and used sporting goods. Stores carry items like golf clubs and bags, baseball bats and gloves, in-line and ice skates, and fitness equipment.

#269 in Franchise 500 for 2020.

Challenger Sports is a multi-faceted international sports company who provide a wide variety of player development programs, coach education clinics, tournaments, tours, and uniform and equipment supply to hundreds of thousands of players, parents, and coaches across the globe. Operating originally as ‘British Soccer Camps’ Challenger Sports began running summer soccer camps in the US in 1985. Each year the company grew and the founders of Challenger diversified and expanded their range of services and products in response to the increasing demands of the rapidly growing North American soccer population. In 1997 the “Challenger” brand was created along with a vision of duplicating the highly successful soccer services and products model into multiple sports. Within two years, company owners Ron Matsch, Peter Arch, Alan Jones, Paul Lawrence, Derek Shoare and Andy Bennett had established a network of regional offices serving soccer communities in every US state and 7 Canadian provinces. Challenger Sports  also invested heavily in the United Kingdom and were the first US based soccer company to set up a full-time recruitment and training operation in Britain.