May 15, 2025 • 5 mins
‘Success from Scratch’ is back where Bill highlights small businesses from how they started to where they are today. Today, Bill talks with Travis Chock, the founder and CEO of Baseballism.
CHECK OUT: Baseballism.com
CHECK OUT: Baseballism.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, this is and I didn't know about this until
number one I read about it. Oh, by the way,
the success from scratch segment, which we're doing right now,
is brought to you by NetSuite, by Oracle. That's important.
They make this happen. And I didn't know much about
baseballism at all until Cono and and and my producer,
(00:22):
the producer, Cono, our board operator. Just love what you do,
and especially Cono have gotten very involved in quote the
business of baseballism, or at least buying from your company.
Explain what this is, because you know, baseball ism. That's
a weird name for a company.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So we are a baseball lifestyle title brand that allows
fans to kind of give an outlet to what they
wear and show their passion for the game. So I
slogan is Bill football players worn by all. We're a
baseball inspired lifestyle brand.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, so what does that mean? Just clothing is what
you offer to you anything else? Do you do? Jerseys? Pants?
I mean normal clothing, hoodies, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, so we're you know, we're T shirts, hoodies, you know, polos, caps, shorts, joggers. Well,
we like to call ourselves like the the Lulu element
of baseball.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, and I'm assuming obviously you have licensing with all
of Major League Baseball. I would I would guess that, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We got the major league license I want to say
four years ago. Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
How difficult was that?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It was a process. It was also, you know, a
decision making a thing by us because we were a
brand that was for the love of the game, and
we didn't know if we wanted to go to the
MLB a route. But as you know, we grew bigger,
we kind of warmed up to the idea because we
saw that people were buying our stuff from different regions
and they had a passion for Major League Baseball. So
we just had to pull the trigger. In twenty twenty one, all.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right, let's start about how start talking about how this started,
because that's a whole story onto itself. I know, you
and buddies, let's just go through from the beginning. How
did baseballism come to be?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it's a pretty wild story. So myself and three
other teammates we started a youth baseball camp at the
University Oregan. We played college baseball there and we started
a youth baseball camp. I didn't know what we wanted
to call it, but I was looking online trying to
find domains, and I found that the domain baseballism dot
com was not taken, so we went with that name
(02:25):
for the camp name. We ran the camp for two
years out of college, and then we went our separate
ways and I was coaching. I had another friend who
was a lawyer, ither guy was a finance manager, and
another guy was in sports sales. But everywhere we went
we would wear our old camp shirt and people would
ask us, where'd you get that shirt? Where'd you get
that shirt? So I made a run of shirts. So
this was in twenty and twelve. I made a run
(02:47):
of shirts. They sold out in a week at the
baseball academy I was working at and I said, guys,
I think we got something here. Let's try to relaunch
this thing as a clothing brand. So we launch our
website in twenty thirteen as baseballs in dot Com. Kind
of rebranded ourselves from a camp to a lifestyle pad brand,
and it's been pretty crazy ever since. So we went
from a youth baseball camp to one of the largest
(03:09):
baseball parl brands in the country.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So when I think in terms of a sports branded
clothing line, I'm thinking uniforms. I'm thinking straight out jerseys
and caps. This goes beyond that in that you're talking
about what sports wear and jerseys on in addition to jerseys,
but also jacket sweater. Is that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, So we that was one of the biggest challenges
for us as we started our company is that people
would come into our store and be like, can I
get a helmet? Can I get a bat can? I
get a pair of battingles? And like, we don't do that.
You know, we stay off the field for the most part.
The only main piece of a pair that we sell
that as on the field is the baseball cap. But
we wanted something that we could wear around, you know,
(03:56):
around town, out to dinner that made us feel like
still I feel like baseball people, even though we didn't
play the game anymore, in a subtle way. And so
that's kind of how Baseballism was born, is like I
used to wear you know, polo, I used to wear lacosts,
and I looked up those logos and I don't play polo,
I don't play tennis. I want to represent baseball. And
so we wanted to go that route of just being
(04:18):
a brand that baseball people could wear and express their
love for the game without you know, wearing a jersey,
you know, or wearing like, you know, an obnoxious MLB
shirt or something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, how what's your price point for this stuff? Where
would you put yourself in the expense list?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I would say we're high qualities that we're in upper middle.
Our t shirts are anywhere from twenty nine to forty dollars,
and our hoodies are from sixty to ninety five dollars.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And how much are your clothing actually is license and
has names of teams on there or Major League Baseball MLB.
I don't even know if anybody does that, but yeah,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So, I mean we we didn't start MLB licensing until
twenty twenty one, So I want to say right now,
it's kind of like a growing part of our business.
It's maybe five to ten percent of our business is
MLB licensedtuff and the rest is just lifestyle stuff our
own brand in line.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Got it all right? What a story? I love it, Travis,
Thanks for spending time with us. Also, people want to
get hold of you. It's baseballism dot com.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It's that simple, right, baseballism dot com, we got something
for you if you love the game.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Take care, greatly appreciated. Take care, Travis, I appreciate it
sort too.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
All right. Great great story success from scratch, brought to
you by NetSuite by Oracle. Get the cfo's Guide to
AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com slash handle,
and we're going to be bringing weekly stories bringing it back.
That's kind of neat. Not only are these great fun stories,
we got a sponsor for it too, which is a
double win.
Okay, this is and I didn't know about this until
number one I read about it. Oh, by the way,
the success from scratch segment, which we're doing right now,
is brought to you by NetSuite, by Oracle. That's important.
They make this happen. And I didn't know much about
baseballism at all until Cono and and and my producer,
(00:22):
the producer, Cono, our board operator. Just love what you do,
and especially Cono have gotten very involved in quote the
business of baseballism, or at least buying from your company.
Explain what this is, because you know, baseball ism. That's
a weird name for a company.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So we are a baseball lifestyle title brand that allows
fans to kind of give an outlet to what they
wear and show their passion for the game. So I
slogan is Bill football players worn by all. We're a
baseball inspired lifestyle brand.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, so what does that mean? Just clothing is what
you offer to you anything else? Do you do? Jerseys? Pants?
I mean normal clothing, hoodies, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, so we're you know, we're T shirts, hoodies, you know, polos, caps, shorts, joggers. Well,
we like to call ourselves like the the Lulu element
of baseball.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Okay, and I'm assuming obviously you have licensing with all
of Major League Baseball. I would I would guess that, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We got the major league license I want to say
four years ago. Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
How difficult was that?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It was a process. It was also, you know, a
decision making a thing by us because we were a
brand that was for the love of the game, and
we didn't know if we wanted to go to the
MLB a route. But as you know, we grew bigger,
we kind of warmed up to the idea because we
saw that people were buying our stuff from different regions
and they had a passion for Major League Baseball. So
we just had to pull the trigger. In twenty twenty one, all.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right, let's start about how start talking about how this started,
because that's a whole story onto itself. I know, you
and buddies, let's just go through from the beginning. How
did baseballism come to be?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it's a pretty wild story. So myself and three
other teammates we started a youth baseball camp at the
University Oregan. We played college baseball there and we started
a youth baseball camp. I didn't know what we wanted
to call it, but I was looking online trying to
find domains, and I found that the domain baseballism dot
com was not taken, so we went with that name
(02:25):
for the camp name. We ran the camp for two
years out of college, and then we went our separate
ways and I was coaching. I had another friend who
was a lawyer, ither guy was a finance manager, and
another guy was in sports sales. But everywhere we went
we would wear our old camp shirt and people would
ask us, where'd you get that shirt? Where'd you get
that shirt? So I made a run of shirts. So
this was in twenty and twelve. I made a run
(02:47):
of shirts. They sold out in a week at the
baseball academy I was working at and I said, guys,
I think we got something here. Let's try to relaunch
this thing as a clothing brand. So we launch our
website in twenty thirteen as baseballs in dot Com. Kind
of rebranded ourselves from a camp to a lifestyle pad brand,
and it's been pretty crazy ever since. So we went
from a youth baseball camp to one of the largest
(03:09):
baseball parl brands in the country.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So when I think in terms of a sports branded
clothing line, I'm thinking uniforms. I'm thinking straight out jerseys
and caps. This goes beyond that in that you're talking
about what sports wear and jerseys on in addition to jerseys,
but also jacket sweater. Is that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, So we that was one of the biggest challenges
for us as we started our company is that people
would come into our store and be like, can I
get a helmet? Can I get a bat can? I
get a pair of battingles? And like, we don't do that.
You know, we stay off the field for the most part.
The only main piece of a pair that we sell
that as on the field is the baseball cap. But
we wanted something that we could wear around, you know,
(03:56):
around town, out to dinner that made us feel like
still I feel like baseball people, even though we didn't
play the game anymore, in a subtle way. And so
that's kind of how Baseballism was born, is like I
used to wear you know, polo, I used to wear lacosts,
and I looked up those logos and I don't play polo,
I don't play tennis. I want to represent baseball. And
so we wanted to go that route of just being
(04:18):
a brand that baseball people could wear and express their
love for the game without you know, wearing a jersey,
you know, or wearing like, you know, an obnoxious MLB
shirt or something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, how what's your price point for this stuff? Where
would you put yourself in the expense list?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I would say we're high qualities that we're in upper middle.
Our t shirts are anywhere from twenty nine to forty dollars,
and our hoodies are from sixty to ninety five dollars.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And how much are your clothing actually is license and
has names of teams on there or Major League Baseball MLB.
I don't even know if anybody does that, but yeah,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So, I mean we we didn't start MLB licensing until
twenty twenty one, So I want to say right now,
it's kind of like a growing part of our business.
It's maybe five to ten percent of our business is
MLB licensedtuff and the rest is just lifestyle stuff our
own brand in line.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Got it all right? What a story? I love it, Travis,
Thanks for spending time with us. Also, people want to
get hold of you. It's baseballism dot com.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
It's that simple, right, baseballism dot com, we got something
for you if you love the game.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Take care, greatly appreciated. Take care, Travis, I appreciate it
sort too.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
All right. Great great story success from scratch, brought to
you by NetSuite by Oracle. Get the cfo's Guide to
AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite dot com slash handle,
and we're going to be bringing weekly stories bringing it back.
That's kind of neat. Not only are these great fun stories,
we got a sponsor for it too, which is a
double win.
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