Authentic Sports Investments in Clearwater controls a wide variety of sports memorabilia.
By SCOTT BARANCIK
Published February 19, 2004
[Authentic Sports Investments]
Alex Rodriguez signs a base, to be sold later by Authentic Sports Investments, Sunday at a Boys & Girls Club in Miami. Since his trade to the Yankees, calls to Authentic Sports have tripled to up to 700 per day.
CLEARWATER - Despite fielding grounders for the last-place Texas Rangers, shortstop Alex Rodriguez was voted Most Valuable Player in baseball's American League last year and built a loyal following in the United States and Latin America. This week he began wearing pinstripes as a New York Yankee.
His fame and marketing appeal are sure to skyrocket as far away as Japan, where the Yankees and the Seattle Mariners, Rodriguez's first major-league employer, vie for top billing.
But no matter where they live, fans who want to buy a jersey Rodriguez wore as a rookie or the helmet he wore while smacking his 300th home run must rely on the same source: Authentic Sports Investments, an eight-person company in an upper-end strip mall on U.S. 19 in Clearwater.
Since Rodriguez's trade this week, calls to Authentic Sports have tripled to as many as 700 per day. His cover story in this week's edition of Sports Illustrated hasn't hurt either.
"They're asking for everything," founder and chief executive Scot Monette said. "We're taking pre-orders for the first pair of cleats Alex wears as a Yankee, the first hat he wears. It's nuts."
Though Rodriguez's trade might devalue the merchandise from his days as a Ranger or a Mariner, it is largely good news for Monette. Items tied to specific, historic moments earlier in Rodriguez's career, such as his 300th home run, may have risen in value. And Rodriguez's new Yankees clothes and equipment should draw top dollar.
Authentic Sports has even created a new company for Rodriguez's merchandise and a separate Web site to market it, 3arod.com, based on his nickname of "A-Rod." Rodriguez, 28, signs all the equipment at a Boys & Girls Club in Miami, the city where he spent much of his childhood.
"With some athletes, you have to go meet them in a fancy hotel," said Monette, who was interrupted at least a dozen times during a phone interview Wednesday by employees seeking guidance.
Monette wishes he handled Rodriguez's endorsements, too, something he does for a small but growing number of athletes such as Baltimore Orioles star Rafael Palmeiro, whose mug Monette helped put on a Wheaties cereal box. He predicted Rodriguez's 2004 endorsement income will reach $20-million.
But Authentic Sports' own revenues, estimated at $7-million in 2003, are nothing to sniff at.
Items currently listed on its Web site include a non-game-use ball signed by Juan Rivera of the 2003 Yankees ($19.99), a hat worn by Tampa Bay Devil Rays star Rocco Baldelli ($399.99), a base Alex Rodriguez stepped on during opening day of the 2002 season ($1,999) and the Louisville Slugger that Sammy Sosa used to hit his 536th home run and tie Yankees legend Mickey Mantle on the all-time list ($5,500).
Monette, 40, has come a long way since his days as a professional tennis player, coach and club pro at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club in St. Petersburg. After quitting the Vinoy in 1999 to start Authentic Sports out of his Oldsmar garage, he and his small team built a portfolio of professional athletes that now totals nearly 100 - mostly baseball players, and some, like Rodriguez and Sosa, exclusive to Authentic Sports. Monette declined to explain how the deals are structured.
Ingenuity and a sense of theater have helped. When Sosa's bat broke open during a game last year and revealed an illegal cork core, Monette called Sosa for assurance that it was a fluke. He also called baseball-card companies such as Upper Deck and Topps - which had purchased Sosa bats, shredded them into pieces and enclosed a slice with card packs sold to kids - to make sure they had never found any cork.
Thus assured, Monette appeared live on cable sports station ESPN with a saw and cut open the bat Sosa used to hit his 498th career homer, revealing nothing but wood.
"That showed that if you're represented by ASI, we're going to stick up for you, to spend $10,000 on a bat to prove you're honest," Monette said. "I can't tell you how many other players came up to me and said, "I saw you on TV, and I really respect you.' "
Orlando Hudson, starting second baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays, said his agent introduced him to Monette and that several teammates also work with Authentic Sports.
Hudson said company staffers contact the Blue Jays directly for clothing and equipment he has used. Then, during spring training in Dunedin or regular-season games at the Rays' Tropicana Field, Hudson sits down in Authentic Sports' Clearwater office and signs it all: batting gloves, cleats, wristbands, bats, balls and jerseys.
"He takes care of his players," said Hudson, 26, whose parents occasionally fly to Toronto from South Carolina courtesy of Monette. "It's a great deal."
As it does with other clients, Authentic Sports photographs Hudson signing each item and has him sign an affidavit confirming its authenticity, both of which go to the buyer.
"If you're going to drop ten grand with us," Monette said, "you're at least going to know what you bought is authentic."
Authentic Sports' Web site, authenticsportsinv.com, is one of several distribution channels. The company sells merchandise at a discount to a pool of 600 independent distributors. It sells 100 to 200 items per week via Web site eBay.com. And it uses auction houses such as Sotheby's and MastroNet to sell high-end items. It doesn't do its own online auctions anymore because it doesn't like to tie up several hundred items for months at a time.
The appetite for signed merchandise used during a game is growing, Monette said.
"People want to be closer to their stars and heroes," he said. "They love the fact that they can buy the bat that Alex Rodriguez used, actually touched."
Some repeat customers are allowed to make special requests. Socks and sunglasses are not uncommon purchases, though there are a couple of requests the company won't honor, such as underwear.
Or not usually, anyway.
One time, Monette said, a Pro Bowl running back "just basically took his clothes off and threw them at us," including an athletic supporter. At first, they chose not to sell it, instead storing it in a back room.
But they did eventually let it go, Monette said.
"A jock-strap collector called us one day and we ended up selling him it."
- Times staff writer Marc Topkin contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727 893-8751.
