Much of the sports equipment used in the United States — including the balls athletes throw and shoot, the bats they swing, the cleats they wear and the gloves they use to catch — is made with materials from other countries.

With President Donald Trump first threatening tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico, then imposing them, and then granting temporary reprieves on some items, the talk of steep new taxes on imported products has created a flurry of questions for the sporting goods industry.

In response to Trump imposing 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, Canada said Wednesday it would place 25% reciprocal tariffs on $20.1 billion of U.S. products, including computers, tools, cast-iron products and sports equipment. The European Union also announced retaliatory tariffs on American-made goods, including sports footwear, ski boots and jerseys, as economists raised concerns that a new trade war will raise prices on a variety of consumer goods.

How all of this affects sporting goods — and even steel and products related to stadium maintenance and construction — remains to be seen, in part because of how quickly things are changing.

Amid that uncertainty, though, there is one certainty: There will be cost impacts. Between 1996 and 2022, according to the World Trade Organization, annual sports goods imports grew from $15 billion to $64 billion, globally. In 2024, of the $10.3 billion worth of sporting goods imported into the U.S., $6.27 billion — nearly 61% — came from China. Mexico and Canada exported a combined total of $746 million of sports equipment into the U.S. in the most recent year available, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

“Sporting goods is the one industry where you have a lot of production outside the U.S. and brought in by the dealers and so on, manufacturers and whomever,” said Ernest Goss, the Jack A. MacAllister endowed chair in regional economics professor at Creighton University. “Another issue that’s often misunderstood is how much of the tariff will be felt by the consumer. It’s wrong to say, ‘Well, it’s a 25% tariff, it’ll be a 25% increase in the price.’ That’s not correct. Depends on the product.”

In addition to Goss, and before Trump’s global tariffs on steel and aluminum took effect on Wednesday, ESPN spoke with Todd Smith, president and CEO of the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), a trade association with a board of directors representing some of the largest sports apparel businesses and leagues; Matt Priest, president and CEO of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, which comprises 97% of the footwear industry; and Forrest Spence, an associate teaching professor and director of undergraduate studies at Notre Dame’s Department of Economics. Lance Allega, senior vice president of investor relations, treasury and corporate development for Under Armour, also sent responses to ESPN. The following has been edited for clarity.

Q: What sports equipment companies will tariffs affect the most?

Some of the biggest U.S.-based sports equipment companies did not respond to requests for comment — including Nike and Adidas, two companies with huge footprints in China. Representatives of the Finnish Amer Sports — the parent company of Wilson and Louisville Slugger, which was purchased by China’s Anta Sports in 2018 and taken private in 2019, told investors during a post-election call on Nov. 19 that goods sourced from China into the U.S. account for 10 to 12 percent of its $5.1 billion in annual sales. Wilson makes game balls for the NBA, WNBA and NFL. Rawlings makes leather baseballs in Costa Rica, though its tannery operation, Tennessee Tanning Co., sources most of its cowhides from a dairy plant in Pennsylvania.

Allega of Under Armour told ESPN that current tariff proposals are not expected to impact the company’s business significantly, as it sources about 3% of its goods from China and even less from Mexico. Allega said Under Armour has “no manufacturing relationships” in Canada.

Less than a decade ago, almost half of Under Armour’s supply chain came from China. Nike reportedly sources a quarter of its global supply chain from China. Adidas told investors last summer that it has largely shifted U.S. goods away from China to avoid tariffs.

Q: How are companies currently handling imminent tariffs?

Smith said the starting and stopping of announced tariffs “is almost as equally as bad as the tariffs themselves” and that companies he works with are having trouble planning months or even weeks out.

“What are we going to pivot to? Are we just going to figure out how we eat the costs? Continue to do business and operate? Have the same supply chain partners we’ve always had?” Smith said. “Which goes back to, OK, well, if you’re not making adjustments and you’re just taking on the additional tariffs … then who’s taking on those additional costs? That’s all just, respectfully, wasted energy.”

Priest said there’s similar unsteadiness within the footwear industry. He said the trade association surveyed members — the association has about 215 company owners — in a flash poll when the China tariffs were 10% and asked what they would do about costs related to these tariffs and whether they would increase prices?

Priest, who worked in the U.S. Department of Commerce in the George W. Bush administration, said that 72% of footwear company owners were unsure, 22% were going to increase prices and 6% were not increasing prices.

“They’ll figure out where it lands in the supply chain, whether it hits the consumer, wholesaler or manufacturer. … We’re much more in tune with how to navigate the bluster than we were the first time around [during the first Trump administration]. We’re not trying to overreact to everything.”

Q: Why tariffs?

The Trump administration views tariffs as a tool it can use to try to affect a number of things, including boosting manufacturing, protecting U.S. jobs and addressing the trade balance between the U.S. and foreign trading partners. The administration also sees tariffs as a leverage option it can use to stem the flow of migrants and illegal drugs into the U.S. Even if the tariffs induce economic downturn, the administration has said, their use can be worth associated costs.

“Tariffs can also be used as a bargaining chip,” said Spence, who noted Trump imposed tariffs on solar panels and washing machines in early 2018. “Tariffs as a bargaining chip didn’t work well in 2018, and even in the Biden administration. … You wanted concessions on things, but we just ended up in this world where international trade became more costly for everybody.”

Goss said raising tariffs isn’t likely going to shift the production of sporting equipment to the U.S. The goal, he said, is to produce corn and essentially trade it for baseballs.

“I want a Honduras banana; I don’t want a hothouse banana produced in Nebraska. I want to produce corn and trade it down to Honduras for the bananas,” Goss said. “Back when Trump slapped those tariffs on in 2018 and 2019, we had the ability to provide those farmers with a little money. We don’t have that anymore. We have a deficit of $2 trillion, $3 trillion, but have a debt of $36.5 trillion dollars. There’s no money there. If we want to provide a cushion for agriculture, our manufacturing is not there.”

Q: Who will this hurt most?

Smith said the consensus is that the consumer would have to take on a portion of the added costs of production. That portion, he said, is yet to be determined in various industries.

Smith, who recently penned in an op-ed for Sportico on how cost barriers can lead to participation gaps in sports activity rates for America’s youth, said the people who likely will feel the greatest impact are the most vulnerable Americans: households earning less than $25,000 a year. Following the 2017 tariffs, those households’ inactivity rates went from 44.6% to 47.4% year-over-year. Smith said it was directly related to the tariffs. In 2017, basic soccer equipment cost a family $115; by 2023, those items increased to $167.50. New tariffs could see those rates and costs rise even higher.

“We, as an industry, sports and fitness, offer a free remedy to try and minimize healthcare costs,” Smith said, “so why would we create more barriers to accessibility and entry into activities?”

Spence said lower-income households would be affected most because they spend more of their income, as a percentage, on consumption — and sporting goods and equipment fit into that.

Priest said the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised tariffs, is known for driving the Great Depression even deeper and has long been viewed “as kind of the pariah” on the U.S. economic landscape.

“Over time, most of the tariffs on products covered by Smoot-Hawley have come down, but footwear has not,” Priest said. “So we pay, give or take, anywhere from $3 billion to $4 billion a year in duties just based on how much volume we’re bringing in. We’re kind of the poster child for an industry that has very high duties where those duties do not keep production here.”

Q: Where does this go from here?

Priest is concerned about where Trump’s tariffs might go next. China is the No. 1 supplier of footwear in the U.S. market, followed by Vietnam and Indonesia — combined, the three countries accounted for 95% of footwear in this country.

“We had an additional 7.5% duty placed on about half of China footwear in 2019, now we have 10% on all China footwear implemented a couple weeks ago,” he said. “Now all eyes in our space are on Vietnam.”

Since the interview with Priest, the 10% China tariff has increased to 20%.

“It’s our No. 1 supplier for sneakers, athletic equipment and apparel, and we have a huge trade deficit with them, over $100 billion,” Priest said. “Vietnam is the play; 35% of the footwear that comes to the U.S. is from China, 35% of the value is from Vietnam. That’s going to be on the radar of the president.”

Smith said companies will look at blending their supply chains to grow the domestic employee base. Companies may not have the ability to manufacture all their product components domestically, but now the alternative might be too expensive.

“It’s the ability to produce new products or innovate,” Smith said, “that all exists actually because of offshore manufacturing. The cost savings because of international productions creates more jobs domestically. So if that is somehow eliminated, or those costs increase, there’s actually going to be the inverse happening.”