SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — Matt Brown was 19 years old when he moved south with his brother, Chris, from Auburn, New York, to Shreveport in 1980.
Chris worked at Pierremont Oaks Tennis Club as a tennis pro. Matt worked in the pro shop. Three years after his arrival and with a vision of a store of his own, Matt Brown opened Sportspectrum.
Now in its fifth decade of operation, Sportspectrum has become an iconic outdoor and running company in Shreveport. The business’ racing management side will stage the 37th Firecracker 5K Race for Research on July 3.
GETTING STARTED
After just a few years living in Shreveport, Matt Brown was ready to bring his vision to life. His father loaned him $10,000 and Brown was in business, opening Sportspectrum in 1983.
“I was just a kid,” he recalled. “I feel like I had a good idea about how my store should operate. I was going into it with the personality that I was going to work as hard as I needed to make something like that successful.”
His formal market research was limited to what was needed from a local bank for a loan on top of what his father had given him. But he knew there was a market for his idea of a running store.
He opened up the first Sportspectrum in the Portico shopping center on Youree Drive. The store covered 1,200 square feet and had four employees.
As one of the first tenants in the shopping center, there wasn’t an anchor store to lure customers. That wouldn’t come for another six months with the arrival of Brookshire’s grocery.
“It was a tough go at first because that shopping center, there wasn’t any reason to go to it,” Brown said.
There was another challenge facing Brown in those early years. His store opened at a time when the oil industry took one of its periodic drops, slowing the Shreveport economy.
Yet, Brown and Sportspectrum survived.
Sportspectrum soon moved into a 3,500-square foot space in the middle of Portico. With Brookshire’s grocery store anchoring the shopping center and a growing inventory, Brown’s store began turning a profit within five years of its inception.
“Once we moved into the middle of the shopping center and broadened the store, things kind of starting taking off,” he said.
Sportspectrum’s ascent was aided by the development of its racing management company. Brown and Sportspectrum jumped into the business of putting on races.
The racing management company began in 1984 and the first Firecracker 5K was run in Shreveport that year.
“That made a big difference in how the business ran and how important the running aspect of it was and how important staying involved in the community was,” Brown said. “We’d put a race on and it was driving a ton of traffic through our door on a weekend. We went from producing five or six races that first year to at one point over 200 races in a year.”
The racing management company split off from Sportspectrum. The company managed races in Houston, Dallas and the surrounding area. Each weekend, they ran four to five races.
They did this for about two years before scaling back to concentrate on races in the Ark-La-Tex. Then they brought the management company back under the Sportspectrum umbrella.
The store, meanwhile, was located in the middle of Portico for about 15 years before moving to a different location in the shopping center. Willis-Knighton Health System had purchased the property and was moving doctors’ offices into the location.
With its emphasis on running shoes and healthy living, Sportspectrum was a good fit for Willis-Knighton.
“They let us move into another part of the shopping center,” Brown said.
The move gave the store its largest space. Sportspectrum had 6,000 square feet at Portico and a 10-year lease.
Brown, though, had a vision for a dream store and in 2010, Sportspectrum moved into its current location at the corner of Fern Avenue and 70th Street with 8,500 square feet.
BUILDING RESILIENCE
Along the way, Sportspectrum has survived the ups and downs of the Shreveport economy, the Great Recession and most recently, COVID-19.
The store’s resilience is one reason it is in its fifth decade of operation.
“I think you have to be constantly evolving,” Brown said.
That was never more evident than last spring when the arrival of COVID-19 in the United States led to a stay-at-home order from late March until the middle of May. The stay-at-home order meant retail businesses had to evolve or die.
Sportspectrum would evolve.
“We had to do things just like everybody else did to survive,” Brown said. “We started online fittings. We were fitting people in the parking lot. We were delivering to people’s homes. We were doing everything we could to survive.”
Brown was able to keep all of his 25 employees on the payroll, but just three would come in to work — himself, his manager and his buyer.
After the stay-at-home order was lifted, Sportspectrum’s sales soared.
“We were having bigger numbers than we had ever seen. If you looked at the athletic market, I think if you had anything to do with being outdoors (it) was busier than they had ever been. Just because that’s all people could do is be outdoors, play, walk,” he said.
Even those soaring sales came with a caveat.
“There was a curveball thrown in.” Brown said. “Even though our business was up 10%, we were having a hard time getting product. Our manufacturers were having a hard time figuring out what the pandemic was going to look like and they were cutting all of their orders. It was a mess. And it still is. We’re still having issues getting inventory that we would like, but we’re doing just fine.”
WHAT’S AHEAD
Brown isn’t the 22-year-old who opened a business anymore. He’s in his early 60s and his vision for the store now includes the time he isn’t owning it.
Three years ago he sat down with his manager, Andrew Gaspard, and they set a five-year plan into place.
“I will be sliding out here in the next two or three years and he’ll be sliding in as the new owner,” Brown said. “I’ll be 65 in a couple of years and the timing is perfect for me and my family and perfect for him. Sportspectrum will continue on with some new, young life in it.”
New leadership for the store would be wise to learn from Brown and his time building a running and outdoor company that would last.
“I think if someone has a vision and a good work ethic and you throw in a little luck into that and just love what you do, I think you can be successful,” he said.
“After 40 years, I still love going into work every day. I think if you surround yourself with good people there is something to be said for that. And I’ve got some great people that work with me.”