Brosnan’s choice for business venture fits like glove

If Wexford footballer Ben Brosnan’s ball-handling is noticeably better than everyone else’s in 2015, it’ll be because he has had such a key role in the production of his gloves.

Brosnan and team-mate Joey Wadding are the main operators behind BodiBro, a high-performance sportswear company which came to prominence this year. The firm’s gloves have proven very popular, with training wear also beginning to get more notice, and Brosnan aims to continue the progress over the coming months.

“I was doing a college course in IT Carlow,” Brosnan says, “but I didn’t want to finish that out and I met Fran O’Reilly of the GPA, who works as a careers advisor.

“He was asking what I was interested in and I had always been interested in sportswear and kits, I designed my own boots as well, so I was considering enrolling in a fashion design in Maynooth.

“The time passed for that though, so then we decided it might be worth seeing if I could set up my own business. I spent a good while looking around for the right suppliers and tried a load of samples, because you only get one chance to make a good first impression.

“We started with the gloves and then we began selling clothes in August, the business has picked up since then, we have a lot of clubs using our products now.

“People liked the design of the gloves and we’ve been able to be very competitive on price too.”

The name was chosen by Paul Diskin, a graphic designer friend of Brosnan’s.

“He’s based in Wellingtonbridge, just a few miles from me, so I contacted him to see what he could come up with,” he says.

“He suggested BodiBro as it sounds good and has the two Bs, like my own name.

“It’s just myself and Joey involved at the moment, but we’re hoping to expand. I design all of the products on Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, so it can be hard work but it means that there’s good control as what’s on my computer goes straight to the manufacturer’s computer and then on to the material so we know exactly what we’re getting.”

Strict GAA licensing rules mean BodiBro aren’t producing kits at the moment. It’s something for further down the line but for now the training wear is enough to keep them occupied.

“The price of a licence is very expensive, so we couldn’t justify it at this stage,” Brosnan says.

“We have seen a big increase in business from GAA clubs though, at the start it was a lot of soccer teams that we were dealing with.

“In the Wexford senior, intermediate and U21 football finals, 27 or 28 of the 30 players on the pitch would have been wearing our gloves and the Wexford team have been too. The aim is to try to expand the business now.”

To that end, the hosting of the Féile Peile in Wexford in 2015 presents a big opportunity.

“Any club that gets to the Féile finals tends to buy gear for their team so we’d be looking to offer our stuff to them,” Brosnan says.

“That’ll be the main focus from January until June and we’re hoping to relaunch the website soon too.”