More Fans Accepting a Sporting Proposition for Dressing Up Home
Sports themes are playing a growing role in home decorating.
This trend can be seen in wallpaper or fabric with a sporting theme, a collection of sports memorabilia displayed in the family room, or furniture with a sports tie-in.
“There are no statistics to prove it, but there certainly are more home-furnishing products with a sports connection than there used to be,” says Marita Thomas, editor of Fine Furniture International and the Wall Paper, two home-furnishings trade magazines.
Sports licensing was third in the ranking of categories in product licensing, according to a recent article in the Wall Paper, with sports licensing representing $13.8 billion in retail sales in 1996, a 19% increase over the previous year.
“People just like their homes to say something about them, and many people are deeply interested in sports, both spectator and participatory,” Thomas says, adding that wallpaper books offer something for almost every sports enthusiast.
For example, Village Wallcoverings has baseball, football and auto-racing themes, as well as motifs from tennis, fishing, golf and skiing. The company is currently developing wallpaper with wrestling themes as a collection licensed by World Championship Wrestling.
“We tie sports into products done under other licenses too, such as a Coca-Cola border showing skiing and snowboarding,” says Elinor Shebar, vice president of Village Wallcoverings. “These are primarily for kids’ rooms, and the youth market is driving a lot of the interest in sporting motifs on wallpaper.”
Sports wallcovering is most often used in the laundry room, guest bath, children’s rooms, family room and home office.
“Those who live in golf or tennis communities often decorate a guest room with wallpaper in that theme,” Shebar says. The sports motif can be subtle--such as pencil-thin stripes like those on baseball uniforms.
Designer Hugh James of Interior Concepts of Atlanta decorated a family room with about 250 items of baseball memorabilia. The collection included balls, bats, gloves, tickets from games and posters.
