Kakehashi Sports: Bilingual sports apparel e-commerce platform

Even though you never made it as a pro baseball player, you can still look the part.

We’re focused on growing leagues around the world (currently Japanese baseball) and on creating a platform that makes it easier than ever for fans to make purchases, regardless of where they are.  Licensing agreements and pre-sales have already been made, with many more on the horizon.

Live out all your professional dreams – and step up to the plate with Kakehashi Sports!

America’s national pastime – along with many other sports – is going global.

The sports leading this international charge are soccer, American football, cricket, and baseball.  The latter is especially interesting – with huge populations of fans located in very specific areas.

The $152 billion global sports apparel market is one of the more promising opportunities out there; however, huge gaps exist that have yet to be crossed.  Current options for purchasing Japanese baseball apparel:

• Are all in Japanese, leaving foreign fans (especially Americans) out in the cold;
• Offer sizes that run notoriously small, in line with Japanese norms;
• Fail to connect fans with teams and their favorite athletes (current and past) in what is a very exciting version of the game.

In large, these issues are mirrored across the global sports landscape, with similar cultural barriers holding a number of other business opportunities back.

Like a seasoned manager exploiting weaknesses in the opponent’s lineup, we’ve uncovered this hidden weakness in the market – and are filling it up with a great business opportunity.

Kakehashi Sports has been specifically designed to capitalize on sports’ globalization, and remedy the associated cultural barriers.  We’re an online sports apparel website whose current focus lies in Japanese baseball.  The true value of our platform is that it’s bilingual, allowing us to connect sports enthusiasts from all over the world.  This is where our sights are set long term. 

Our e-commerce site:

• Is bilingual, aggregating products from all Japanese teams in English;
• Offers larger sizes that cater more to foreign markets;
• Holds licensing agreements that provide fans with Japanese team apparel as well as apparel of Japanese MLB players, current and past (Ichiro Suzuki, for example).

The idea itself is a home run – but we didn’t stop there.  We’ve built in a number of other features into our platform, including:

Exclusivity – Our founder is the first and only foreigner to receive license agreements to sell Japanese team apparel.

Customization – We’re the first ones to offer the ability to customize apparel with your own design, name, and number.

Vintage appeal – We also offer vintage uniforms from now defunct teams and former player jerseys.  This trend hasn’t caught on in Japan as of yet – giving us a great opportunity to create the marketplace.

Great designs – They’re second to none.  Our designers aren’t Japanese, so they deliver results that have more impact and pizzazz then typical Japanese shirt designs.

Licensing relationships – We’ve secured licensing agreements with Japanese MLB players and 3 NPB teams, and fully expect to have all 12 NPB teams on board soon.

A lineup of leadership all-stars with serious international networking reach makes up our executive team.  We’ve combined varying areas of expertise – from sports, to marketing, to business development – to capitalize on this unique business opportunity.  Details on the hall-of-famers tasked with executing the Kakehashi vision:

William Brooks, CEO/Founder
He’s the visionary who first identified this great market opportunity and founded Kakehashi Sports.  William’s spent the past 15 years in Japan, immersing himself in the nation’s business landscape, culture, and sports industry.  Off the strength of two businesses he’s founded and sold in the past 9 years, he’s become a talent acquisition and HR expert.  Mr. Brooks will oversee day-to-day operations and personnel while crafting and executing an effective company culture and long-term strategic vision.

Shingo Harada, Marketing
Our marketing maven, Shingo will be tasked with developing our brand and successfully bringing our products to market.  He has over a decade’s worth of marketing and related design experience.  He’s successfully marketed and designed brand images for over 400 companies in his professional career, and will have no problem doing the same for us.

Every path to the big leagues begins with hard work, and successful stops in the minor leagues.  We’re no different.  We’ve hit and conquered a number of different milestones on the way to where we currently stand.  Here are just a few that give us great confidence going forward:

Exclusive rights secured.  We’ve obtained licensing rights with 3 of the 12 NPB teams – with our Founder being the first foreigner to ever do so.

Forming our product line.  Our talented designers have finalized four different apparel designs to this point.

They’re flying off the shelves.  We’ve presold the 800 units based off of one of these aforementioned designs.

The athletes are on board, too.  We’re currently talking to several players on the teams we’re working with, who will serve as outstanding marketing assets.

The name is protected.  The Kakehashi Sports name is very valuable to us and has great brand potential, and it’s been trademarked.