Franchises growing in popularity, including homegrown Extra Innings, Jump On In

Bill Kirk

August 27, 2007 10:52 pm

— It’s like a couple of kids went outside to play catch one day and 10 years later they owned a baseball league.
Rob Nash and Joe Luis were a couple of ballplayers knocking around in the minor leagues in the late 1980s. Released from their teams in the early ’90s, the North Shore natives started teaching baseball clinics to local kids and dabbling in sports merchandising.
That’s when they hit on an idea to combine the two.
In 1996, with less than $50,000 in seed money borrowed from friends and family, they opened Extra Innings on Route 1 in Danvers, which had batting cages for coaches, kids and teams, and a store with bats, balls and uniforms.
“After one year, we knew we had something,” Nash said.
They opened a 17,500-square-foot facility in Middleton in 1998 and over the next five years opened a number of company-owned sites. They had their first franchise agreement in 2004.
Late last month, the Peabody residents announced a milestone: they had just signed an agreement for their 50th franchise — in Middletown, N.Y.
A week or two later, they had 51. With that kind of explosive growth, the company expects gross profits of about $45 million this year, Nash said.
“How many small businesses start with less than $50,000 and grow to such a big company?” asked Nash as he gave a tour of the company’s Middleton facility, also the company’s corporate headquarters.
According to the International Franchise Association, quite a few.
Franchising has turned into one of the leading sectors of the U.S. economy, with 760,000 franchised establishments generating in excess of $1.5 trillion in economic activity and producing one of every seven jobs, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers study commissioned by the IFA.
“It’s growing in popularity because it’s a much easier way to own a business than starting from scratch,” said Terry Hill, a spokesman for the IFA. “The number of brands is growing as well. People see (a franchise), they want to be a part of it, and they say, this is something I can do.”
Jumping at an opportunity
That’s what happened with Adrian Manning and his wife, Delba Evangelista, Middleton residents who were looking for franchise opportunities after he took a severance package from Standard & Poor’s, the financial services company he had been with since 1997.
“We originally went out to book a party for our twins,” said Manning. They happened to go to Jump On In in Lowell. “My wife said, ‘What a great idea, but it’s too far away.’ It spawned from there, and we said, ‘We need something else for this area.’”
They were considering franchising with Pump It Up, the California-based company with a facility in Peabody, but then considered going out on their own. That’s when their Realtor mentioned that the owners of Jump On In, Kevin and Carla Lynch, were interested in franchising.
Manning said the couple contacted the Lynches, and the two couples “clicked.” Manning and Evangelista also learned about the pitfalls of venturing solo.
By franchising, they were able to avoid all the mistakes Lynch had made while taking advantage of his good decisions.
They signed an agreement and opened a franchise in the Ward Hill Industrial Park. Another Jump On In franchise will open next month in Nashua and a fourth is slated for Woburn.
But Hill, of the IFA, recommends that people tread carefully before jumping into franchising.
“Don’t get emotional and don’t get caught up. It’s a myth for people to assume that a franchise is already put together and easier to run. We try to disabuse people of that notion. It’s a lot of work.”
Job change
Abbie Heller, a mother of two from Humble, Texas, spent three days at Extra Innings this week in a second-floor conference room with company executives. She had quit her job as the vice president of marketing for a credit union in Texas to take a swing at running a franchise. Her father, an oil and gas sales executive, also quit his job to help run the business — one of the company’s newest franchises — which should be running next month.
“We were looking for a franchise in the baseball industry,” said Heller, taking a break from one of the training sessions with Mark Andrews, the vice president for franchise operations and son of 1967 Red Sox second-baseman Mike Andrews, who is now head of the Jimmy Fund. “Initially we were just going to do sporting goods. But this offers everything. None of the other companies had any facilities like this.”
Her facility will be 15,000 square feet of air-conditioned space with batting tunnels and a store, similar to the Middleton building.
What Heller gets for her up-front investment, which she would not disclose, is 11 years of experience by the company’s founders, Nash and Luis.
“What they get is our business model,” said Andrews. “They have access to the mistakes we’ve made, and they get off the ground quicker than if they tried it on their own.”
Triple threat
Nash said the company quickly outgrew that first store in Danvers, opened in 1996. The replacement facility and the company’s current home, at 264 S. Main St. (Route 114), is a 17,500-square-foot building with a 34-foot high ceiling. From the outside, it resembles a simple warehouse.
But inside, it becomes clear that just about every square inch of the site is designed to maximize use — and revenue.
Nash explained that a driving force behind the business is the concept of “triple threat. One part feeds into the other part. Kids come in for instruction, then look to the instructors to guide them on buying the proper equipment. This leads to equipment sales. Then they want to try it, so that’s where the batting cages come into play.”
He noted that if all they offered were batting cages, their customers would “go to Sports Authority to buy a bat. We make sure they’re properly outfitted.”
But the linch pin to the “triple threat,” said Nash, is the instruction.
Here’s an example: Instructor Sean O’Brien, 23, of Wakefield lobs balls for 13-year-old Nat Barrett of Peabody to hit. Behind him, a digital video camera catches every move. On screen, O’Brien can draw with his finger, much the same way sports broadcasters do on TV, to give tips to Barrett on proper stance, swing and follow-through.
“If these students don’t get better, they don’t come back,” said Nash, noting that many of the coaches are former customers. Now, there are four coaches on salary and a number of others that work on an as-needed basis, said Nash. Their record of achievements is impressive.
Two of their former pupils, Peabody’s Matt Antonelli, was drafted in the first round, 17th overall, by the San Diego Padres, while Ryan Moorer, also of Peabody, was picked in the 13th round by the Chicago Cubs.
Nash hopes that his franchisees have the same success.
Just as the interior of the buildings are planned, so are their locations. When someone buys a franchise, they buy a territory, which must be within a 20- to 30-minute drive of at least 250,000 people. Annual household income in the frachise area must be at a certain level and the communities need to have a high proportion of 7 to 12-year-olds, their core demographic. Finally, the area needs to have a brisk population growth rate to ensure future success of the franchise.
“Each facility grows at about 25 percent a year,” Nash said.
Once a franchise opens, Nash or someone on his staff visits at least twice a year for a performance audit. The companies are linked through an intranet network so they remain in constant contact with the corporate headquarters in Middleton as well as with each other.
“We are truly a team,” said Nash. “We learn from each other, share ideas, and grow the business together.”

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