Craze rocks stadiums; High schools, colleges peddle wares of Series fame

USA TODAY; McLean, Va.; Nov 21, 2002; Michael Hiestand

Full Text: Copyright USA Today Information Network Nov 21, 2002

In Focus: Turn up the volume

This seems like a simple story: People like to bang stuff to make big noise.

After lots of fans did that at the World Series, demand shot up for the inflatable noisemakers that millions of viewers had seen over and over again on TV. And now these bangers, tubes about 2 feet long sold under CheerStix and ThunderStix brand names, are popping up across the sports landscape -- especially at high schools.

But scratch below the surface and the story's simplicity deflates. First, there's a David-and-Goliath struggle between the American expatriate in China and the Midwest industrial packaging firm that each make bangers. There are the high school boosters who see them as cash cows, the sports sponsors using them as another spot for ads and even sports officials concerned about their volume.

But after all the cowbells, air horns and drums that fans use to make noise, what's special about bangers?

"You want to know the truth?" says Steve Parker, a dentist in Colleyville, Texas. "Here's how they hooked me: I go to a Texas- Oklahoma game this season and they're on my seat. They're more fun than clapping or yelling. You can take them home to your kids."

Still, Parker wasn't hooked. "Then, one's on my seat for a Texas- Iowa State game, and I figured you can reuse them. So I take them for a Texas game up in Nebraska. Banged them in the middle of all those 'Husker fans, and they got annoyed. But they also laughed."

Parker had to act. He ordered 5,000 CheerStix for his local high school, Southlake Carroll, where he's the football team's dentist. Along with team doctor, Mark Greenburg, Parker purchased the bangers for boosters who'll thump them at a state playoff game Saturday.

Parker wants more. He paid $3,000 for 5,000 pairs, "but if I use sea freight next year, I'll get 10,000 for $3,000."

But, why? "Well, I'll tell you why: I think everybody likes them," says Jed Metts, an Elkin, N.C., insurance agent who two weeks ago ordered CheerStix for football boosters at Elkin High after seeing them used at another school. "Especially since 9/11, our country's unification makes everybody want to show their spirit. They want to get off their duff."

Modest beginnings

Jim Lundberg, 42, expects to sell about 3.5 million pairs of CheerStix this year, about seven times his 1998 total. Next year's projection: sales topping 5 million pairs -- not bad given "this is about my 10th business and the first where I've had any success."

Lundberg was in the U.S. Army in Panama and "cut the heads off fish at a high rate of speed" in Alaska before ending up teaching English in 1993 in Korea, where bangers were big at baseball games. So Lundberg, representing the Korean manufacturer, sent 3,000 to his brother Ed in Seattle, who tried selling them outside a 1997 Seattle Sonics game. Ed sold five.

Lundberg called the minor league Seattle Sounders soccer team to ask if they wanted 2,000 free bangers. They did and gave them out a game that could have buried the banger.

But because the game was on regional cable TV, a Nike executive in Oregon saw it and promptly ordered 30,000 CheerStix for a promotion at a U.S. men's soccer team game on national TV. By 1998 half the NBA's playoff teams had ordered CheerStix as bangers fanned out across sports. And by 1998 Lundberg faced a competitor when Vonco, a Lake Villa, Ill., firm whose products range from biohazard bags to hand puppets, launched ThunderStix. Those bangers flooded the 2000 Republican National Convention and last summer's Little League World Series, then sales doubled after the big boys' 2002 World Series.

Vonco marketer Jim Porto saw early interest. "Somebody offered me two beers and a sandwich for one at a hockey game. That's maybe 17 bucks! I knew we had a hit." And, he says, one with an odd impact: "Because of ThunderStix, we're attracting better employees."

For years, Lundberg turned away consumers connected to high school sports: "I'd send them back nasty e-mails, told them to go away." Now Lundberg gets orders from about 1,000 high school groups, who buy pairs for as little as 20 cents apiece and generate 60% of Lundberg's revenues. Those groups sell bangers to raise money or sell ad space on them -- or both.

While Vonco sells to distributors and not directly to consumers, Lundberg's www.cheerstix.com is an e-commerce venture. Orders can be delivered within days: Lundberg's 25 workers live at a Beijing factory, getting up at all hours for orders.

While you can hear bangers on CheerStix's toll-free number, it hardly does justice to a device whose decibel-level tested higher than a chainsaw's. That led the Pacific-10 Conference to ban bangers at 2003 football games. Says Lundberg: "We're banned by a few conferences. At least the Pac-10 gave us a chance."

So did Kim Robinson, who owns a trucking company in Salina, Utah, and saw the product at a Utah Jazz game, then ordered them online for his hometown North Sevier High boosters. "The kids can pound each other's head and nobody gets hurt," Robinson says. "Other teams ask where we got those things. We're a little reluctant to tell. They might use them against us."

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