After almost 20 years in the brand business, I’m still surprised when I learn that a brand is but a cog in a bigger brand wheel.

A while back I saw an infographic depicting the brands that rolled up into “big food”. Impressed on one hand, I was taken aback by the scale, number of skus and amount of store shelf space owned (bought) by so few companies. Do consumers have real choice or just the illusion of choice? Is this a function of what’s needed to negotiate with big retail players. Do customers even care?

I do a lot of work in the natural, health and wellness food space and I recently came upon this infographic showing the acquisitions in the organic industry. It's controversial. Some see this as selling out, even a betrayal of values. Others take the view that this is needed for the organic movement to scale its’ impact and movement.

I was curious about sporting brands and decided to pull together something similar for them. Yikes. No sooner as soon as I started, I realized it wasn’t going to be as simple because...

1. It isn’t easy to define a sports brand. Is Coleman a sports brand? What about hunting brands like Bushnell - makers of rifle telescopes & binoculars?

2. Some holding companies don’t own only sporting brands. Take Compass Diversified Holdings, who recently sold CamelBak. They own a very diverse group of companies.

3. Althleisure. The merging of fashion and sportswear. Many fashion companies have stakes in or own outright “sports” brands. For instance PVH, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, owns Speedo. Ambercrombie & Fitch created and owns Hollister surf.

Despite these challenges, I forged forward and created the following: