In the glory days of the sports licensed products boom of the late 1980's and early 1990's, nobody ruled the roost like Starter. Everywhere you looked, you would see something with that famous Starter star on it. The Starter satin jacket dominated the sports business like no other product before it. On the field and in popular culture, Starter was king.
This advertisement from 1989 features the Atlanta Hawks' Dominique Wilkins, somewhat clothed in his Atlanta Hawks Starter gear. Dominique was one of the coolest cats in the NBA at the time and this classic ad captures Nique's smooth style. Back in that time, we actually thought those shorts were long!
Unfortunately for Starter, the saying "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" played out. After absolutely dominating the business in a big way for many years, Starter's popularity started to disappear a bit and the company came crashing down. What was once the dominator of the marketplace quickly crumbled and disappeared from the marketplace.
Today you can find Starter gear at lower level retailers, but it is nothing more than the logo that was purchased from the ashes of what was left of the original company. Even though it is no longer the industry giant it used to be, the Starter logo still evokes vivid memories of a great time in the history of the sports products business.
