Is Prince in trouble?

R

richie65

Rookie
Here in our part of Canada and in some other areas there are no longer any reps and the racquets shops cannot get a reply back from the American head office. The product line has dried up and from what I've heard is that nothing is being shipped.

Does anybody have more information on the Prince situation? It would be a huge blow to the tennis market if they folded.
 
Bartelby

Bartelby

Bionic Poster
Prince is in the hands of an asset fund/private equity group so it's possible they run it as lean as possible, particularly if they're over-leveraged, which is the norm.
 
drakulie

drakulie

Talk Tennis Guru
Yup, Prince is definitely in trouble. Down here in our shop in South Florida, we haven't been contacted by a Prince Rep in over a year, and also are having lots of trouble contacting anyone of interest. We have actually pulled the plug on all racquets.
 
canadad

canadad

Semi-Pro
If this is the case, that is a shame. When I started playing in 88, Prince was huge, everyone had or wanted Prince. Then again at that time where I lived there were tons of people playing the sport. Perhaps a decline in players overall as well as the decline in the economy has put this company into some trouble. Another factor may be the boldness in racquet designs(port holes) that have not really caught on. There is also alot of stiff competition out there.
 
movdqa

movdqa

Talk Tennis Guru
Only one guy in my tennis circles plays with Prince frames. Most people I know play with Wilson, Head, Babolat and Dunlop - the guys that do a pretty good marketing job with pros. The O-Ports have been a turnoff for me and I didn't like the idea of having to get an accessory to undo them.

The only reason I know about their current line of frames is because of the discussions on this forum along with the TW reviews.
 
Bartelby

Bartelby

Bionic Poster
The brand is viable; it's the owners who aren't.

If they sell it on cheaply maybe better owners can do a better job.

There are still Fischer racquets after Fischer, etc.
 
T

TennisCJC

Legend
I'm not a fan of the o-ports either but still would hate to see them disappear. I don't know why they don't get away from the o-port technology. The aluminum OS with the green plastic throat yoke introduced the first oversize racket and they followed that with the OS graphite. These were probably the biggest innovations in the last 50 years. The aluminum OS with the green yoke was a terrible racket. I had one and it was super flexible and you had to string it around 65 lbs to have any hope of controlling the ball. I could not afford the original graphite when it was released at $300 around 1980-82 timeframe. That was a month's rent at the time. But, I played the less expensive prince precision graphite for about a decade.
 
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C

Chopin

Hall of Fame
^Ha!

It would be a shame if Prince was in trouble--I personally don't like the racquets with holes either--but boy, I remember when Prince was all the rage. They need to move away from the ports I think (or at least not make racquets exclusively with that feature) and drop their prices. Dunlop features more reasonable prices and they seem to be much more popular than even five years ago.
 
mikeler

mikeler

Moderator
The quality control on Prince tennis balls has gone down. I don't buy them anymore. Have not used a Prince racket for a few years but I still have a lot of them sitting in my garage.
 
!<-_->!

!<-_->!

Hall of Fame
last i heard, prince was near bankruptcy. they didn't have the money to pay jankovic back when she was still with them. not sure how reliable this is though.
 
Y

ynot101

New User
I love prince and they have been extremely nice to a poor kid with a dream to string on the pro tour, and I'll gladly play with my prince sticks till I drop dead....
 
T

TimothyO

Hall of Fame
A local shop has been unable to get restock of current Prince frames and has zero info on availability of new ones. They said both the product supply and info lines to Prince have dried up.
 
E

El Diablo

Guest
Prince's non-shoe clothing line has been "suspended." You'll notice only a few clearance clothing items on this website. They indicated no new clothing line for 2012, deciding whether to have one for 2013. What's happening to Prince may be what happened at Chrysler -- the brand and product withered when it was taken over by a venture capital group with no car guys in charge (recall that Chrysler hired the guy who ran Home Depot to run Chrysler), now starting to see real progress (8 speed automatic, etc.) since car guys at Fiat took over Chrysler.
 
A

AdAraujo

New User
If Prince didn't have the money to renew Jelena Jankovic's contract... And yes, I remember her playing an all black racquet...

Can someone explain to me why is she using a Prince Tour 100 paintjob on her racquet at 2012's Brisbane?

Then probably they have the money and the "problem" could be a new distribution/dealers policy.

Just to add my 2 cubes of sugar.
 
R

rufusbgood

Semi-Pro
Overeemforehand-YYR-23 said:
When I think of Prince I think of Babolat and low quality racquets, racquets that break easily.
Click to expand...

I recently took a hacksaw to one of Prince's O-port racquets. Considering the construction, I would expect them to be less likely to break than other designs because of that middle wall created by the sandwiching of two tubes of material instead of one. Additionally they are not weakened by having been drilled to create dozens of string holes. Another plus: Not a likely target for counterfeiting either.

3585v0k.jpg
 
A

AdAraujo

New User
I didn't know Prince was low quality either...

Maybe in Europe the quality is better than in the US?!

I have a handful of different Prince racquets and they are all intact. Contrary to no less than, 3 Head intelligence Radicals, that broke just near the yellow incerts.

Stressed materials tend to break obviously but, this is getting away of the topic.

Is Prince going bust? Yes or No.
 
A

AdAraujo

New User
I didn't know Prince was low quality either...

Maybe in Europe the quality is better than in the US?!

I have a handful of different Prince racquets and they are all intact. Contrary to no less than, 3 Head intelligence Radicals, that broke just near the yellow inserts.

Stressed materials tend to break obviously but, this is getting away of the topic.

Is Prince going bust? Yes or No.
 
O

Overeemforehand-YYR-23

Banned
rufusbgood said:
I recently took a hacksaw to one of Prince's O-port racquets. Considering the construction, I would expect them to be less likely to break than other designs because of that middle wall created by the sandwiching of two tubes of material instead of one. Additionally they are not weakened by having been drilled to create dozens of string holes. Another plus: Not a likely target for counterfeiting either.

3585v0k.jpg
Click to expand...

Good pictures.

Well, racquets can break anywhere, I remember Zvonareva having problems last year with the throat piece breaking, she had to play with her coaches racquet at the end. Isner having early string breakage because of the racquet's grommet( I think)...

But last year when I broke one, it was on the tip of the head when I shanked an overhead. I mishit the overhead hitting the frame and it cracked right in the middle, good thing it was that I was demoing the racquet, so i didn't have to pay anything :)
 
Sentinel

Sentinel

Bionic Poster
I remember a couple years back Kolya playing an entire tourney with one stick. He mentioned that in one interview.

Shortly after that there was a bunch of Prince reps selling their racks at a Challenger (here in Delhi of all places). Never saw them since.
 
jjs891

jjs891

Semi-Pro
Even though I don't use Prince racquets currently, I still have POGs and plan to keep them. Shame if they don't survive. I hope they find the way to restructure and stay in the game.
 
ZeroSkid

ZeroSkid

Banned
I never liked prince, and I always use to say get rid of the holes, but then I picked up the prince ex03 tour andfound it to be one of the best racquets out there, I was deciding between the prestige mp and the prince exo3 tour and I choose the tour, and some good pros are playing with this such as David Ferrer, Victor troiki, Alex Bogomolov Jr.
Donald Young, so I hope it becomes popular. But even more so in trouble I would say is Dunlop.
 
Timbo's hopeless slice

Timbo's hopeless slice

Hall of Fame
ZeroSkid said:
I never liked prince, and I always use to say get rid of the holes, but then I picked up the prince ex03 tour andfound it to be one of the best racquets out there, I was deciding between the prestige mp and the prince exo3 tour and I choose the tour, and some good pros are playing with this such as David Ferrer, Victor troiki, Alex Bogomolov Jr.
Donald Young, so I hope it becomes popular. But even more so in trouble I would say is Dunlop.
Click to expand...

umm, what?

How could you possibly say that? Their sales are up quite dramatically...
 
Lendl

Lendl

Semi-Pro
Unfortunately the local dealer here said similar things. Weird because he got the Rebel demos in so quickly. I didn't ask questions, he just said they were struggling and wasn't sure how long they'd last.

drakulie said:
Yup, Prince is definitely in trouble. Down here in our shop in South Florida, we haven't been contacted by a Prince Rep in over a year, and also are having lots of trouble contacting anyone of interest. We have actually pulled the plug on all racquets.
Click to expand...
 
movdqa

movdqa

Talk Tennis Guru
> and some good pros are playing with this such as David Ferrer, Victor
> troiki, Alex Bogomolov Jr. Donald Young, so I hope it becomes popular.

How do you know what they are using? Prince plays the Pro Stock game too and there's far less knowledge on what their pros are using compared to the retail sticks.

> But even more so in trouble I would say is Dunlop.

I haven't heard this - they are not huge in the US but I understand that they are big in many places outside the US.
 
DeShaun

DeShaun

Banned
Bartelby said:
Does Brooks make the tennis shoes that sell as Prince?
Click to expand...
Brooks running shoes to me feel a great deal more durable and cradling compared to my T-22s, solid tennis shoes by most accounts but lacking that high-quality feel had by even entry level Brooks.
 
Timbo's hopeless slice

Timbo's hopeless slice

Hall of Fame
movdqa said:
> and some good pros are playing with this such as David Ferrer, Victor
> troiki, Alex Bogomolov Jr. Donald Young, so I hope it becomes popular.

How do you know what they are using? Prince plays the Pro Stock game too and there's far less knowledge on what their pros are using compared to the retail sticks..
Click to expand...

well, the O-Ports are a bit of a giveaway, don't you think?

I seriously doubt Ferrer or Monfils are playing with pj's of a pt-57a, no matter what some idiot on a tennis forum might think.

(i reckon the torsional rigidity would be a bis suss if you took a precision and drilled dirty great holes in it!)
 
movdqa

movdqa

Talk Tennis Guru
> well, the O-Ports are a bit of a giveaway, don't you think?

No. A pro stock could have O-Ports too. How do you know what the pros are using?

> I seriously doubt Ferrer or Monfils are playing with pj's of a
> pt-57a, no matter what some idiot on a tennis forum might think.

I didn't say that they did. I just wanted to know why you think that Prince's pros are using retail sticks.

> (i reckon the torsional rigidity would be a bis suss if you took a
> precision and drilled dirty great holes in it!)

All of these deflections have nothing to do with the issue of what Prince's pros are really using. I do see Prince pro stocks advertised with codes like the Head and Wilson models. I have no idea as to their coding system though and no idea as to the playing characteristics. Perhaps you're in expert in Prince pro stock nomenclature?
 
H

Hominator

Hall of Fame
scotus said:
Thanks for the pertinent and informative article, Hominator.
Click to expand...

My pleasure. Interesting comment on Donald Young's racquet in the article The Prince guy said that they made six variations of racquets for Young to test, according to his specs. Not sure whether they manufactured pro stocks for him or simply customized racquets with tape to get the specs...
 
movdqa

movdqa

Talk Tennis Guru
One of Hantuchova's Prince Racquets is for sale at the Strings Forum (one of her old Yonex racquets is for sale too). The code is TX265P-98. It looks like there are O-Ports in there but the angle of the picture is such that I can't see through them.

So it appears that Prince does pro stocks too.
 
vsbabolat

vsbabolat

G.O.A.T.
movdqa said:
One of Hantuchova's Prince Racquets is for sale at the Strings Forum (one of her old Yonex racquets is for sale too). The code is TX265P-98. It looks like there are O-Ports in there but the angle of the picture is such that I can't see through them.

So it appears that Prince does pro stocks too.
Click to expand...

The ports are there on her racquet.
 
Timbo's hopeless slice

Timbo's hopeless slice

Hall of Fame
movdqa said:
> well, the O-Ports are a bit of a giveaway, don't you think?

No. A pro stock could have O-Ports too. How do you know what the pros are using?

> I seriously doubt Ferrer or Monfils are playing with pj's of a
> pt-57a, no matter what some idiot on a tennis forum might think.

I didn't say that they did. I just wanted to know why you think that Prince's pros are using retail sticks.>
(i reckon the torsional rigidity would be a bis suss if you took a
> precision and drilled dirty great holes in it!)

All of these deflections have nothing to do with the issue of what Prince's pros are really using. I do see Prince pro stocks advertised with codes like the Head and Wilson models. I have no idea as to their coding system though and no idea as to the playing characteristics. Perhaps you're in expert in Prince pro stock nomenclature?
Click to expand...

My point is that they are clearly using Prince sticks, unlike other pros with pjs of completely different brands. You will note I have never suggested that retail sticks are or are not in the hands of these players.

Anyway, the whole pro stock thing is a bit irrelevant to Prince's financial position, surely? The point is they have some very successful tour pros on the books right now, so that isn't the problem...
 
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Bartelby

Bartelby

Bionic Poster
The company that owns Prince is stripping all the costs out to make it look more profitable than it is in order to sell it.

Someone will buy it and find out that if they don't start investing they will have bought a lemon and then ...
 
M

monomer

Rookie
Prince is a valuable brand in tennis. I don't see them going out of business. If they are being badly run by an equity group it's more likely that they would be sold.
 
M

monomer

Rookie
Bartelby said:
The company that owns Prince is stripping all the costs out to make it look more profitable than it is in order to sell it.

Someone will buy it and find out that if they don't start investing they will have bought a lemon and then ...
Click to expand...

^^This. (typed as I was typing mine above)
 
movdqa

movdqa

Talk Tennis Guru
> My point is that they are clearly using Prince sticks, unlike other
> pros with pjs of completely different brands. You will not I have
> never suggested that retial sticks are or are not in the hands of
> these players.

Here's my original post.

>>> How do you know what they are using? Prince plays the Pro Stock
>>> game too and there's far less knowledge on what their pros are
>>> using compared to the retail sticks..

Why did you think that I was suggesting that I think that Prince is
PJing other manufacturer's sticks from my second sentence?

> Anyway, the whole pro stock thing is a bit irrelevant to Prince's
> financial position, surely? The point is they have some very
> successful tour pros on the books right now, so that isn't the
> problem...

The top ten ATP has Head (Djokovic, Murray, Berdych), Wilson (Federer,
Fish), Babolat (Nadal, Tsonga), Ferrar (Prince), Technifibre
(Tipsarevic) and Dunlop (Almagro). Is there a correlation between
sales and who has the top two or five or ten?

At any rate I was responding to a post that said that Prince's pros
Ferrar, Troiki, Bogomolov and Young are using the EXO3 Tour. Kind of
like saying that Murray is using a Radical Pro.
 
DeShaun

DeShaun

Banned
Bartelby said:
The company that owns Prince is stripping all the costs out to make it look more profitable than it is in order to sell it.

Someone will buy it and find out that if they don't start investing they will have bought a lemon and then ...
Click to expand...


This would seem too obvious a means of deceiving potential buyers. Anyone in a position financially to make a serious offer would also seem to be knowledgeable of such tactics. No? Of course, I can imagine some entity purchasing Prince with ideas other than continuing the manufacture and sale of tennis goods in mind, but nobody is likely to be spending millions of their dollars on any lemons, unless the buyer were employing some highly sophisticated balance sheet management scheme that even the purchaser's lawyers who specialize as professionals in analyzing high stakes contracts, could for some unexplained reason not detect, and that seems unlikely.
 
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