Athletic shoes are built for high performance and are considered part of an athlete’s gear. They make up just one part of the sporting goods market typically thought to include footwear, equipment, and clothing.

The total retail sporting goods market was valued at approximately $50 billion in 2005 according to estimates made by the National Sporting Goods Association. Footwear made up one-third of this total.

The National Sporting Goods Association has tracked consumer spending for athletic shoes since at least 1988. Its twenty-six categories of athletic shoes include aerobic, baseball/softball, basketball, boat/deck, bowling, cheerleading, cross training, cycling, fashion sneakers, fitness, football, golf, gym shoes/sneakers, hiking, hunting, jogging/running, skateboarding, soccer, sport sandals, tennis, track, trail running, volleyball, walking, water sports, and wrestling. To gather its data, the National Sporting Goods Association surveys 20,000 households twice a year for a total of 40,000 households.

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The Distribution of Athletic Shoes »

Consumer spending on athletic shoes steadily increased from a low of $12 billion in 1999 to a high of a projected $17.5 billion in 2007. Consumer spending increased during the period by almost 25 percent. The market grew in part because Americans buy more shoes. In 1980 each American purchased 5.7 pairs. By 2005 per capita purchasing was 7.71 pairs per year, a 40 percent increase.

While consumer spending on athletic shoes steadily increased, U.S. production steadily decreased. According to U.S. Census Bureau reports on footwear from their Current Industrial Reports series, in 1992, U.S. shoe manufacturers shipped products valued at $4.8 billion and within a decade shipments fell more than 50 percent, down to $2.2 billion in 2002.

The American Apparel and Footwear Association has tracked U.S. production and U.S. imports of shoes since at least 1990. Rather than focusing on consumer spending as does the National Sporting Goods Association, the American Apparel and Footwear Association counts numbers of shoes in pairs. For athletic shoes, 100 percent are imported as of 2005, the year for which most recent data are available. Of imports, 78 percent of athletic shoes come from China.

The National Sporting Goods Association conducts twice yearly surveys of footwear retail sales. Retail sales of athletic footwear rose 1.0 percent during the 6-month survey period of October 2006 through March 2007. Half of the sixteen types of athletic shoes covered in the National Sporting Goods Association 2006-2007 survey showed sales declines. Among the most popular athletic shoe categories-those with projected sales of five million units or more-only gym shoes/sneakers, fashion athletic shoes, and walking shoes increased in dollar sales. Fashion sneakers led the dollar increase, up 10 percent. Gym shoes/sneakers were up 2 percent. Walking shoe sales rose 6 percent.

Basketball shoe sales had the largest decrease among major athletic shoe categories, with a decrease of 4 percent. This decrease in sales of basketball shoes-a high-tech, high-priced segment of the shoe market-does not bode well for key producers of athletic shoes.