Transpak to Play It Again Sports

When Mark Zimmerman looked into buying Sarasota's Play It Again Sports, he knew it was a chain of sporting goods stores specializing in selling used and new sporting equipment.

What the 61-year-old native of New Rochelle, New York, was unfamiliar with was the origin of the name.

Play It Again Sports. Play it again, Sam, a misquotation of the line "Play it, Sam" from the movie "Casablanca."

Zimmerman's independently owned store isn't exactly a gym joint, but because of COVID-19, many gym patrons have turned to him for help.

And sales at Play It Again Sports have reflected this need.

"For the year, I'm up double-digits," Zimmerman said. "I'm bitterly sweet about how good the business is due to the pandemic. But that doesn't mean I want this pandemic to continue. I want to be normal, too."

For area sports enthusiasts in need of stuff, there's Dick's Sporting Goods, the nation's largest sporting goods retailer with approximately 850 stores and 30,000 employees, and Play It Again Sports, started in 1983 in Minneapolis and now with more than 450 stores in the United States and Canada.

Zimmerman was on the back end of a 37-year career as a district manager for CVS Pharmacy in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut area. But the company reorganized in 2017, a shuffle which greatly increased his work load.

"More work for the same pay," Zimmerman said. CVS eventually severanced him and the move caught him by surprise. "I would have retired with them."

But with three children in college and not yet ready to sit at home, Zimmerman looked into buying into a variety of businesses. His love of sports zeroed in the former high school baseball player and track star in 2018 on the Play It Again Sports franchise for sale in Sarasota.

Zimmerman visited a couple of stores, one being the Sarasota location, which had seen its sales tumble. The owner operated 26 other Play It Again Sports franchises around Florida, but hadn't been in his Sarasota location in 10 years.

"I knew it wasn't very profitable," Zimmerman said. Still, he saw the potential in it, and after getting approval from the Winmark Corporaton, the franchiser of Play It Again Sports, Zimmerman forked over about $200,000. The Sarasota location was his.

"I was nervously excited," he said. He renovated the store, but without much available inventory, Zimmerman began listening to the requests of his customers.

So he started selling discs for disc golf. Zimmerman brought in more bikes and more fitness equipment. He got the necessary space by ridding the store of cumbersome hockey equipment.

But six months after Zimmerman took over, Dick's opened a store at The Mall at University Town Center. And for the first month at Play It Again Sports, sales tanked.

"I was like, 'Oh, my God. What's going on here?' " Zimmerman said. "But after a month and a half, it started going back up again and it hasn't stopped."

That's because COVID-19 has been good for Zimmerman's business. Bike sales are up more than 100 percent. He's operating with a ratio of 60 percent new gear and 40 percent used due to no one coming in with their used equipment.

In March, when area gyms shut down, fitness junkies descended upon Zimmerman's store for equipment. "There are fitness junkies out there like you can't believe," he said.

Sales of dumbbells, benches, weight bars and plate weights exploded. People came to Zimmerman for inline skates, bikes and golf equipment. "It made up for the other stuff I was not selling."

He was forced to close in April, but since reopening on May 3, Zimmerman hasn't been complaining, save for one thing.

His vendors can't get him the equipment fast enough. Zimmerman ordered 27,000 pounds of weights. Ten weeks later, he got only 8,500.

"And I can't tell the customer when he can get it," he said. As a result, Zimmerman will post on Facebook when an order of equipment arrives.

"Then it's first come, first served," he said. "I wish I had carte blanche to be able to get whatever I wanted, when I wanted it."

Someday the virus will pass. But Zimmerman thinks the sale of certain equipment won't as part of the post-COVID-19 world.

"I think, quite frankly, (it will last) until the end of time. I don't think it will stop."

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Source: https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/sports/2020/08/10/covid-19-sarasota-play-it-again-sports/3332346001/

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