Business landscape of the Climbing Industry. What does it look like?

The recent controversy around backcountry dot com has had me wondering about the business landscape in the climbing industry. They are obviously owned by a private equity firm that is just there to maximize its returns, but it seems like other entities that try to sell us all products are a mix of other highly corporatized machines (rei, TNF and its parent, etc), to smaller mom and pop type companies that are owned by the people running them.

Some examples— Black Diamond is owned by Clarus Corporation, whose main guy was previously in the defense industry, but decided to switch to his passion of outdoor products once he made his money. The North Face’s parent company is VF corporation. Arcteryx is owned by Amer Sports, which was recently bought by Anta. Others have remained privately owned, like Metolius, or Patagonia.

So what does the market for climbing look like? My cursory impression is that it’s dominated mostly by “Big Climbing”. But that’s probably by nature of it being such a niche activity that only the established players can survive easily. Unless you’re like C.A.M.P. or Petzl, where a lot of your business comes from the rigging or arbor worlds.
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The stat from the AAC state of climbing report was that 2018 sales of climbing equipment was only like $150 million, which is relatively small.  As such, it seems that most of the money is in selling apparel since it’s cheap to make a fleece jacket/etc, and you can sell it to everyone and not just climbers. 
Obviously, there is also the world of climbing gyms, which is probably a very lucrative thing on its own (especially for these gyms in my area that are charging >100$ a month for a membership!!).

So, what are the main players? Retailers? Equipment and Apparel makers? Gyms? All of the corporate parent companies? Organizations/Land Managers?

i guess the trend of climbings growing popularity raises the question of how does climbing maintain its integrity when it’s going corporate? 

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who work in the business of climbing, or come from a similar business background who might be able to offer some insight!

To make this more fun— which companies in climbing are the most “evil”?, etc etc 

I like VF Corp, a very well run company.

Climbing has integrity? How so? It's just a pointless selfish pursuit when it comes down to it.

We turned a corner when Wal Mart bought Moosejaw. Just sit back and let it all wash over you, resistance is futile.

If climbing didnt have integrity, people would just poop anywhere and everywhere, no??

Regarding all of the companies getting bought up, i'm not saying it's entirely a bad thing, since it means could mean more resources to develop new products (if the products are going to be profitable). But is this trend of consolidation by larger corporates just not gonna go away? Is there not room for the independent type players as time goes on?

welcome to late stage capitalism. everybody gets to come, even climbers.

Wali K wrote: If climbing didnt have integrity, people would just poop anywhere and everywhere, no??

Regarding all of the companies getting bought up, i'm not saying it's entirely a bad thing, since it means could mean more resources to develop new products (if the products are going to be profitable). But is this trend of consolidation by larger corporates just not gonna go away? Is there not room for the independent type players as time goes on?

How does a hobby have a personality trait? Climbers are people and have the full range of personality traits, some have integrity, others do not. 

The north face, for example would not exist today if VF did not step in, and that may be the case for others as well. As far as independent players go there are a lot out there, the nice thing about capitalism is you have the choice to spend your money where you want. My last climbing purchases were from tufa, blue ice, and organic, for example. 

Ashort wrote:

How does a hobby have a personality trait? Climbers are people and have the full range of personality traits, some have integrity, others do not. 

The north face, for example would not exist today if VF did not step in, and that may be the case for others as well. As far as independent players go there are a lot out there, the nice thing about capitalism is you have the choice to spend your money where you want. My last climbing purchases were from tufa, blue ice, and organic, for example. 

Re: personality trait -- there are obviously accepted ethics and norms of participating in the activity (LNT, etc). Obviously, there wouldn't be an uproar if backcountry,com didn't violate some accepted normal way of behavior. Certain companies make it a big part of their brand to embody certain of those ethics (i.e. patagonia and their environmental focus). I don't particularly mind that VF owns the north face, or necessarily that Amer sports got bought by a Chinese firm, or that Newell Brands owns Marmot, etc etc.

The intention of this post isn't to like inspire a boycott of Big climbing, because the sport depends on the ability of Big Climbing to produce products at scale and low cost for resource intensive products that a smaller firm would have trouble making. Plus, big climbing can throw money at tons of sponsorships, and send people to do crazy stuff in antarctica or karakoram  etc. in a way that a smaller less profitable company cannot.

Mostly, it's to get a sense of who holds the most market power-- are the smaller companies able to compete enough against the established firms, how do gyms (and their suppliers like walltopia, etc) fit into the scheme of things? Retailers etc?