WNY maker of garb for NBA, Bills losing contracts to Asia

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The exclusive supplier of game jerseys for the National Basketball Association is moving all of its production contracts to Asia, a decision that may idle a sports uniform factory in Perry and its 100 employees.

Adidas, the global sportswear powerhouse that manufactures game jerseys for the NBA and several National Football League teams — including the Buffalo Bills — notified the owners of the American Classic Outfitters factory in Perry about six weeks ago that it was canceling a contract that began in 2008 and was supposed to run through the end of 2014.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., is among those calling on Adidas to change its mind and continue to produce NBA uniforms in the United States rather than move the work from ACO and two other U.S. suppliers to factories in Thailand. He made an appearance at the factory Tuesday afternoon to urge such a change in plans.

“It is flat wrong for Adidas to take away the production of NBA game jerseys from the company and workers here in New York who have done so well for the NBA for so long,” Schumer said in a statement issued by his office Tuesday morning. “And to do it in this economic climate adds insult to injury. Basketball is a marquee American sport and the NBA is its premier stage.”

But the factory’s owners say they have to consider that opportunity lost and start looking for other possibilities.

“We’ll make a plea to anybody who wants quality uniforms made in the USA,” said Rob Knoll, a senior vice president of St. Louis-based R.J. Liebe Athletic Lettering Co., who was visiting the Perry plant Tuesday. “This facility is still a viable operation.”

Liebe bought the 300,000-square-foot Perry facility Nov. 3, Knoll said, knowing that Adidas had already given notice of its decision to cancel its production there. That move came less than two years after beginning a relationship that required ACO to make about $1 million in improvements to the plant and to produce exclusively for Adidas.

Knoll said the Adidas cancellation is to take effect at the end of the year, with the possibility of some small jobs trickling over into 2010. After that, unless the German-owned maker of sports equipment changes its mind, the Perry facility will no longer make the jerseys that stars such as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant wear to work. It also would be the first time in league history that its players have worn jerseys made outside the United States.

About half of the NBA’s game jerseys have been made in Perry, Knoll said, along with all of the jerseys worn by Women’s National Basketball Association players and those used by the teams in the NBA’s developmental leagues. The plant has also manufactured jerseys for NFL teams including the Bills, the New England Patriots and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

If Adidas executives want to change their minds, Knoll said, “we certainly will welcome them.”

If the factory cannot find other customers, its loss would be a serious blow to the economy of Perry and Wyoming County.

“When you have a county with 43,000 people and 93,000 cows, 100 employees are a significant number,” said Michael Heftka, executive director of the Wyoming County Industrial Development Agency.

Heftka is hoping that leaders such as Schumer can put pressure not only on Adidas, but on the NBA, to reverse the decision.

“We called on Sen. Schumer to see if he can’t ask the NBA commissioner to insist that game- day uniforms be made in the U.S.,” Heftka said.

Heftka said ACO qualifies for state Empire Zone assistance but currently receives no government aid and is fully on the tax rolls.

“It happens,” he said.

ACO itself is the reborn remnant of a much larger operation, a factory for the Champion sporting goods line, which once employed as many as 1,000 people at the Perry factory before leaving in 1999, Heftka said. Local businesspeople created ACO soon afterward, he said, employing as many as 200. The facility’s history with the NBA goes back about 40 years, Knoll said, and before the exclusive deal with Adidas, it also made uniforms for pro, college and high school teams.

Adidas AG is based in Herzogenaurach, Germany, and, according to its Web site, employs nearly 39,000 people worldwide. In addition to the Adidas shoe and apparel lines, it also owns the American-based Reebok athletic wear brand and TaylorMade golf equipment.

The Village of Perry, estimated population 3,660, sits at the junction of Routes 39 and 246 in northeastern Wyoming County, between Silver Lake and Letchworth State Park, about 55 miles east of Buffalo.