Prince Sports
For more than three decades, Prince has maintained its status around the
world as a 'cutting-edge' sports brand, an industry leader in the
development and manufacturing of performance racquet sports equipment.
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The only US-based
racquet brand, Prince has revolutionized racquet sports since its
conception back in the early seventies. Prince has made the game of
tennis easier to play with its introductions of the "Oversize"
racquets; it reshaped squash with its innovative "Extender" racquets;
and redefined badminton with its "Y-Joint" concept.
Today, Prince provides
game-enhancing equipment for players from head to toe, with shoes,
apparel, accessories, and more. |
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Prince has enhanced its
international exposure by sponsoring some of the most elite athletes in
racquet sports, including tennis legends Stan Smith, Patrick Rafter,
Martina Navratilova and more recently Jennifer Capriati, Juan Carlos
Ferrero, Guillermo Coria and the Russian teenage sensation and Wimbledon
Champion Maria Sharapova; and squash's world number ones Peter Nicol, John
White and Cassie Jackman. Their success in Grand Slam competitions has
heightened consumer interest in the Prince brand as well as the sport of
tennis.
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Today Prince continues
to maintain a strong presence on the professional circuits through
sponsorships and events, working closely with national and local
programmes all over the world and developing grassroots opportunities
for the next generation of stars in racquet sports.
It was in 1970 that Bob McClure, working in his garage, invented
Little Prince, the first tennis ball machine for home court use. This
signalled the birth of Prince Manufacturing, named after the town of
Princeton in the US state of New Jersey. |
Over the next few years,
Howard Head was introduced to the Prince Ball Machine. Frustrated with his
tennis game, Howard soon feels compelled to work out a few design bugs in
the Ball Machine … and not long afterwards, becomes majority owner and
Chairman of the Board!
While the Ball Machine
prospered, Head continued to struggle with off-centre hits and lack of
control, which motivated him to invent the first patented Prince oversized
racquet, the Prince Classic. At 110 square inches, its revolutionary
design changed the shape of the game and introduced the world to the
concept of a "sweetspot". The Classic became the most successful racquet
of its time.
In 1977, the Prince Graphite established the US brand as the material
technology leader. The first graphite racquet, adopted by many top
players, quickly became the standard by which all others were compared.
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Michael Chang won the
French Open with the Prince Original Graphite racquet – and seven
years later revitalised his career with the Prince Precision Michael
Chang LongBody racquet, with which he climbed back up No2 player in
the ATP world rankings.
The advent of the larger racquet head size put greater demands on
string - so Prince developed its first multi-filament string. The
Prince Synthetic Gut continues to maintain its status as the world's
best-selling string.
Prince's pioneering R&D
expertise produced the Prince Pro, the world's lightest aluminium
racquet with which Pat Cash won the Wimbledon title. |
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It was in the early eighties that Prince began designing functional sport
bags - ultimately becoming the market-leader in this important area.
In 1982, Prince introduced one of the first Stringing Machines, the P-200,
in response to the more practical aspects of the game – and two years
later unveiled its first line of tennis wear, continuing its commitment to
serve a tennis player's every need. Shortly thereafter, the brand sees the
need to go beyond the all-purpose tennis shoe and develops a lightweight
and durable shoe for the sport, the TPU-4000.
1987 proved to be a pivotal year for Prince: Not only did the Prince
management purchase the company from its then owners Unilever NV, but the
brand also branched into the international squash market with the
introduction of squash racquets and a line of accessories. Furthermore, it
later purchased Ektelon, the global leader in racquetball.
Within two years of entering the market, Prince changed the future of
squash with the graphite Prince Extender - its longer main strings
dramatically enlarging the power zone. The Extender soon became the
sport's top-selling racquet worldwide.
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Prince's technology and
innovation continued to revolutionise the game of tennis throughout
the nineties. The brand introduced the Triple Threat Racquet Series in
1999, which offered a revolutionary new weighting system. Triple
Threat technology was the game's first and only racquet technology to
offer perfect balance and stability.
Using the Prince Triple Threat Rebel racquet, Jennifer Capriati won
both the Australian Open and French Open. A year later, Prince
introduced the MORE Performance line of tennis racquets - the first
racquets in history built using a revolutionary PowerLock technology,
featuring a unique patented moulding technique that creates string
channels so that absolutely no drilling of the racquet is required.
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It is this technology that
was the feature of the MORE Attack racquet which helped Maria Sharapova
lift the Wimbledon singles title in such stunning style in 2004 – and led
to England's Peter Nicol, celebrating his 60th month as the world's No1
squash player in the same year.
A new era for Prince was unveiled in May 2003 when a new company, Prince
Sports, Inc., acquired the rights to the brand from the Benetton Group,
its owners since 1990. Led by George Napier, Prince Sports relocated from
Italy to Bordentown, New Jersey, the company's birthplace – thereby
reinstating its status as the only leading racquet sports company that is
American-owned and American-based
With the acquisition has come a renewed vigour, a new spirit and a fresh
perspective. The brand is undergoing a major re-launch around the globe,
as the new management undertake their commitment to run a focused,
coordinated and innovative company.
Unlike its competitors, Prince is exclusively focused in racquet sports
and will maintain and enhance its reputation as a product-driven
innovator, producing products which help players play to the best of their
ability and Rule the Court.
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