Ektelon, one of the major brands in racquetball and the one with longest history as it dates back almost 40 years, is owned by Prince Sports Inc., which recently filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. court so as to facilitate reorganization.
Prince Sports has been a major brand in tennis, which is a bigger market than racquetball, so it's likely that their trouble stems from that side of the business rather than from racquetball. Sources tell us that it's business as usual on the Ektelon side.
Thus, while this is troubling news, it doesn't mean the end of Ektelon or even the end of Ektelon as a Prince Sports brand.
People often think of the health of a sport by the number of people playing, number of juniors, how well the pro tours are doing, but a major way to view the health of a sport is to see if there are companies making money from the sport. Again though the parent company is in difficulty, Ektelon itself seems to be doing fine. Proof to this is that Ektelon continues to be the title sponsor for the upcoming USA Racquetball National Singles Championships in Fullerton, California that begins next week.
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