As you may already know Prince Manufacturing has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection in an effort to restructure it’s $60 million dollar debt.  Anyone that has been around tennis for any length of time recognize Prince as a premier brand for almost forty (40) years!

What happened?

I have no information but a couple of things come to mind that may have contributed to this situation.

One, a radical new construction now called “O” Port Technology.  This technology created some issues with retailers and racquet stringers because some of them simply didn’t know how to string them.  I know from first hand experience that retailers and stringers do have an influence on racquet sales!

Two, I saw a decline in the quality of sales personnel calling on behalf of Prince products.  Prince, like many other manufacturers began using “independent sales representatives”.  That means they can sell any non-competing product(s).

There are probably a zillion reasons it finally came to this.  Prince intends to continue business as usual during this time, and I really hope they can recover and become the brand it once was.