VP of Apparel & Merchandising

About Capacity Sports Group Capacity Sports Group (CSG) is one of the largest youth sports tournament and venue operators in the country. CSG brings together leading brands across six core sports — baseball, softball, volleyball, soccer, flag football and lacrosse — including Prep Baseball, Bullpen Tournaments, Top Tier, Play9 Sports, YSC Sports, United Sports, Flag Football Life and others. CSG operates destination venues nationwide, including Grand Park (Westfield, IN), LakePoint Sports (Cartersville, GA), Homefield (Kansas City), The Rock (Franklin, WI) and more, with new facilities underway in Richmond, Nashville, Georgia and Dallas. Hundreds of thousands of athletes and their families come through our venues and events each year. The opportunity CSG is hiring its first VP of Apparel & Merchandising to build a retail business from the ground up. Today, merchandise is handled venue by venue and brand by brand; this leader will turn it into one scaled, profitable department across every CSG venue, event and Power 6 sport vertical. This is an operating role, not just a strategy seat. You will design and open storefronts, hire and lead the retail and buying teams, set the assortment and vendor strategy, and own the P&L. Success means significant, measurable growth in merchandise revenue and per-attendee spend as CSG continues to add venues and brands. Key responsibilities Strategy and growth Build and execute a multi-year apparel and merchandise strategy across all CSG brands, venues and the Power 6 sport verticals. Own the department P&L: revenue, gross margin, inventory turns, shrink and labor cost. Grow revenue per attendee and per event through assortment, pricing, placement and promotions. Identify new revenue streams: team and club uniform programs, event-exclusive and championship merchandise, custom and on-demand products, and corporate partnerships. Develop e-commerce and pre-order channels that extend sales beyond event days. Venue storefronts and operations Design, build out and open permanent and pop-up storefronts at every CSG venue, including new facilities in development. Set retail standards: layout, fixtures, visual merchandising, POS, staffing models and customer experience. Hold regular planning meetings with venue GMs to review upcoming events (teams, attendance, sports and age groups) so together you can predict the right assortment and quantities and maximize merchandise sales at each venue. Partner with GMs and tournament operations to align retail with event schedules, traffic flow and peak weekends. Develop and implement a centralized inventory management system across all venues, events and online channels: select the platform, integrate it with POS and Finance, and give real-time visibility into stock by location and SKU. Build the supporting processes for receiving, transfers between venues, replenishment, cycle counts, end-of-season clearance and loss prevention. Buying and merchandising Lead buying, assortment planning and open-to-buy across brands and sports. Source and negotiate with apparel and hard-goods vendors, decorators and licensing partners. Protect and extend CSG brand standards while giving each brand and sport its own identity. Use sales data to drive buys, markdowns and sell-through targets. Vendor partnerships Build a core group of strategic apparel, hard-goods and decoration partners, consolidating spend across CSG brands to earn better pricing, terms and priority production. Negotiate and manage agreements covering cost, minimums, lead times, quality standards, exclusivity, marketing support and return or markdown allowances. Run regular business reviews with key vendors on sell-through, fill rates, margin and co-developed product. Maintain a backup supplier bench to protect supply during peak tournament season. Marketing-led assortment and margin Partner with Marketing to plan merchandise around the event calendar, championships, brand launches and sport-specific mome…

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