Kurt Ainsworth, CEO of Marucci Sports, explains the market share milestones achieved by Marucci and acquired bat maker Victus Sports in MLB.
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Ainsworth: Competitors admitted targeting Marucci to slow its market share growth
“There's no question. We've had conversations with some of those other companies across, over the years, and they said, we could take some hits from some smaller companies, but what you guys did, y'all were taking so much market share, you know, we kind of had …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ainsworth: Legacy bat competitors shipped dozens where few were game-ready
“We saw that the other competitors in the space were sending out, you know, 12 bats to a player when they'd order a dozen players, and only three or four of them would be good enough to use in a game.”
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Ainsworth: Competitors' bats also failed lab tests, but only Marucci was decertified
“We then took bats from the field, sent them to the lab, and they were all over the limit, but nobody else was decertified but us,”
Insight
Ainsworth: Training with wooden bats makes players better hitters with aluminum bats
“If you can learn how to hit with a wooden bat and find the sweet spot on that, when you pick up your aluminum or your composite bat, you're going to be a better hitter.”
Assertion Partly supported
Ainsworth: A hammer drives nails into ash bats, but bends on maple
“Maple's just a harder wood, and if you really
You know, show people a player comes in, you could take a nail with a hammer and drive it right into an ash bat. You take that same nail and try to put it in a maple bat. It's going to bend the nail and you show a…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ainsworth: Marucci has never paid a player to swing its bats
“You know, we've never paid a player to swing a bat. And a lot of that was because we just couldn't afford to pay players.”