By Dan Weil
Bloomberg News

NEW YORK -- Chuck Holiber, a 54-year-old social worker in New York City, has been a sports junkie all his life.

A high school basketball star who went on to play on the same University of Miami team as Hall-of-Famer Rick Barry, Holiber still participates in local basketball leagues, organizes weekly tennis competitions and has a satellite-television dish that lets him watch any pro basketball game.

Now, he is trying to profit from his passion. In March, he bought stock in Converse Inc., a sneaker and apparel maker, and Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. a sports equipment manufacturer.

"I want to be invested in sports," Holiber said. "It's a great industry."

There are many opportunities for sports nuts like Holiber to merge their zeal with stock investing -- from Nike Inc., which dominates the athletic footwear and apparel market, to the Boston Celtics L.P., who once dominated the National Basketball Association. Sports enthusiasts who indulge their athletic interests when investing have an advantage of knowing about the products offered by companies whose stock they might purchase.

"If you're a regular visitor to your local Athlete's Foot or Sports Authority, like I am, and you suddenly see 11 to 12 pairs of Adidas shoes on the rack, when last time there were only four to five, that's a sign to look at the company," said Peter Russ, a stock analyst for Shelby Cullom Davis & Co., New York, a securities firm.

Personal observations should only be the first step in evaluating an investment, however, Russ said. "You have to put pencil to paper and look at the business," he said. "You have to ask whether the company's growth is sustainable and figure out what you want to pay for that growth. When you can buy a company whose prospects are improving at a low price, that is good."

Holiber, the social worker, hopes his purchases of Rawlings and Converse fit that bill. He bought the stocks at the recommendation of a friend who is a professional investor and had referred him to several winning stocks before.

Holiber and his friend aren't the only fans of Rawlings stock. FPA Capital Fund, a mutual fund managed by Robert Rodriguez, owns about 11 percent of the company's shares. "Rawlings is a troubled company trying to find its way," Rodriguez said. Much of the company's revenue comes from baseball equipment. So it was hurt by the Major League baseball strike of 1994-95. In addition, "their international expansion has been quite slow," he said.

Since being spun off by Figgie International Inc. in 1994, Rawlings stock has dropped about 25 percent.

With baseball increasing in popularity now that the strike is over, Rawlings stock could rise to $11 a share in the next 12-18 months, said Timothy Conder, a stock analyst at A.G. Edwards Inc., a St. Louis-based securities firm.

Rodriguez said that if the stock doesn't rebound, "the more likely it could be the target of another interested party," which would also lift its price.

Converse, Holiber's other sports investment, has climbed more than 40 percent since he bought it, and now some analysts say it may be running out of steam.

"They have a strategy that's at best confusing, and at worst capitalizing on a moment," said Russ of S.C. Davis. Converse is selling an advanced leather remake of its All-Star basketball shoe, a popular canvas and simple leather sneaker line in the 1950s through the mid-1980s.

"Now, there's a fad where kids are wearing retro-looking sneakers," Russ said. "Converse may get a season" of good sales "but I don't think their strategy will sustain growth over time," he said.

What many do like is Nike.

"I wear Nikes and I've always felt they were comfortable," said David Solin, a 36-year-old foreign exchange consultant in Essex, Conn., who has been buying and selling the stock during the past couple years. "The big thing going for them is that their product is very good and they're brilliant on the marketing side."

Nike's endorsement contract with golf phenom Tiger Woods also could boost the stock, analysts say. "Nike can sell billions of dollars of Tiger Woods shoes and apparel," Russ said. "He is an icon athlete around which they can build a brand like they did with Michael Jordan."

Russ's firm bought Nike when the stock fell about 25 percent from mid-February to early April. "When a great company gets beaten up for short-term considerations, that's the appropriate time to buy," he said.

That rule especially applies for buying stock in teams, like the Celtics, Russ said. Other shares of professional sports teams include Florida Panther Holdings, parent of the hockey team, and Ackerley Group Inc., which owns the Seattle Supersonics NBA franchise.

"The simplest thing to do with a sports team is to be counterintuitive to your rooting interest," Russ said. In other words, when the team loses, buy the stock.

Take the Celtics, who had the worst record in team history this season. "Their economics is unaffected by how successful the team is," Russ said.

With the NBA's lucrative national television contract, a local TV contract and the booming popularity of the NBA, the stock is in better shape than the team, Russ said, though it has lagged broad market indexes since it was introduced in 1986.

Since the beginning of the NBA season, the stock has gained about 19 percent, to $25 a share, compared with a roughly 17 percent gain for the Dow Jones industrial average. An added benefit for Celtics shareholders: an ownership certificate with the team's logo suitable for framing.

Sports-related stocks offer plenty of opportunity for profits, Russ said, so long as investors avoid "emotional concerns that get them to ignore the pencil and paper" in evaluating companies.