Saturday, October 19, 2002

By JONATHAN LANSNER
The Orange County Register
JIM LUNDBERG keeps Angels fans supplied with CheerStix.
Paul E. Rodriguez / The Register

If it weren't for Jim Lundberg, the din at Edison Field might not be the same.

It was Oct. 7, the Monday after the Angels dusted off the New York Yankees in the first round of the major-league playoffs. Angels marketing folks scrambled to score more noisemaking balloons.

Chicago-based Vonco, which supplied the Thunder Stix that helped make two victories over the vaunted Yankees memorable events, gave the Angels bad news. The firm could only make enough balloons that week for one of the three upcoming league championship games.

Two feet long and red, these pairs of inflatable plastic tubing had become a marque of fan support at Edison Field. Hard to fathom a playoff game without them.

Jennifer Randall, an Angels marketing exec, recalls the deep disappointment when she hung up with Vonco's rep. Moments later, fortuitously, some guy from China calls.

It's Jim, hoping to sell his balloons known as CheerStix to the Angels.

BANNED BY PAC 10
Lundberg, 42, is the consummate entrepreneur. A guy so focused on his niche that, well, he can seem a tad goofy.

His CheerStix balloons - as well as other artificial noisemakers - have recently been banned from Pac 10 college football games, a real good market for him. Oddly, he's ecstatic because the league determined that the balloons' ear-popping clatter was an unfair home-field advantage.

"If that statement isn't great for business, I dunno what is," he says.

Yes, Lundberg could be correct that the banning might spur others to buy balloons to incite home crowds. Considering Lundberg's meandering ride to fad-of-the-moment status, that kind of notice is quite remarkable.

Born in Seattle, he was an Army man for three years out of high school. After the service, he tried college, but a series of kidney ailments grabbed his attention.

He worked odd jobs, notably time on an Alaskan fishing boat, trying to save money for his dream: becoming an international businessman in Asia.

In 1990, with little money, he got to Korea and did some teaching. He learned Korean and has since added Chinese - he learned Spanish in the Army in Panama - to his cultural repertoire.

Teaching bored him. So he dabbled at his own business efforts, even failing in his first try at selling noisemakers in Korea. Then, in 1996, he sold Nike on his balloons for a soccer match.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Soon, a product - his balloons were first known as Bangers - morphed from a quirk of Asian baseball games to an American audience.

From soccer to football to professional basketball's playoffs, these balloons - not just Lundberg's, mind you - became a hit with home teams wanting instant atmosphere.

Lundberg became a rare success story of Internet commerce, as the Web's global reach allowed him to sell to U.S. schools and pro teams while running a factory in China, where he relocated in 1997.

He also used some old-fashioned grass-roots marketing in the states, like supporting a trade group for college-sports marketing officials.

"He has passion for what he does. That's fun to see," says Leslie Wurzberger, sports marketing director at the University of Washington and a buyer of CheerStix. "In a business where creativity is needed, trying to be fresh can be rewarding."

He's basically a one-man show. In a Beijing factory near the Great Wall, he designs, makes, markets and even ships one product: CheerStix - the balloons with the blow-up straw, for those frequenting recent Angels games.

His main competition, Vonco, is a 150-person company that also sells a slew of plastic containers and gizmos. It's a classic business match-up: moxie vs. muscle.

This battle will be amplified during the World Series: Lundberg's supplying the Angels, while the opponents, San Francisco's Giants, will be using Vonco's Thunder Stix.

THE RUSH ORDER
Most buyers of these balloons plan their events well in advance. That makes getting custom-printed balloons a relatively easy process. The Angels had four balloon nights during the regular season.

Then come spur-of-the moment events - like playoff games, where the host doesn't know when its games will be. Lundberg's been through such hectic drills before: the National Basketball Association playoffs.

While the NBA's timing is often as crazed as the Angels', it's usually an easier hustle. Basketball arenas only require maybe 20,000 balloons - less than half what baseball requires.

Quickly making balloons is one headache. Getting them to the United States in time for big games can be harder.

Lundberg often beats his U.S.-based competitors in delivery speed from across the Pacific by hand-delivering the goods. He flies with CheerStix packed 1,000 pairs to a box stowed as excess baggage, easing logistics and customs hassles.

Just so you know, there's 11 cents of freight charges for each pair of balloons. Huge orders, like the one for the Angels, sell for 20 cents a pop, minus freight.

Some teams can't meet tight postseason deadlines. The Giants and Oakland A's settled for Thunder Stix with no printing for playoff games.

Then there was Oct. 7, when the Angels were preparing to meet the Minnesota Twins. The Angels seemed stuck when Vonco couldn't make enough Thunder Stix to satisfy three Edison Field crowds. But Lundberg, giving up half a world in distance from his worthy adversary from Chicago, was up to the challenge posed by the Angels.

"I've never seen CheerStix used like that. Every single person was using them in unison. It was just awesome," Lundberg says of watching the Angels a week ago Friday. That night, his CheerStix helped to whip a packed Edison Field into a frenzy as the Angels beat the Twins en route to the World Series.

"The American sports fans are the most passive in the world. Now they're finally getting into the games like Europeans and the Japanese."

THE REAL GAME
Two weeks ago, Lundberg's dad, a former minor-league ballplayer, watched the Yankees-Angels games on TV. He saw the Edison Field balloon madness. He called his son in China and urged him to pitch the Angels. Jim dialed up Anaheim.

He reached Randall, who fields dozens of unsolicited calls from prospective vendors for the Angels. She knew of CheerStix and didn't want to lose that ballpark spark the balloons created. A patchwork solution was born.

Lundberg could only make enough for two games - 90,000 balloons. Vonco got the order for the other game's balloons.

"I had to convince the factory that it could be done. That quality actually goes up," when the machines go full out, Lundberg says

One week ago Friday, he got off the plane from China at LAX just before 10 a.m. The Angels were playing the Twins at 5 p.m.

"I had some butterflies," says Randall. But the team had a backup: an extra set of Thunder Stix - ones with no sponsors' names emblazoned on - from earlier in the season.

Lundberg made it to Edison Field just four hours before the game, enough time to stock Edison Field's gates with freshly minted CheerStix with the "Yes We Can" rally cry printed on.

This week's production of CheerStix was easier, since the factory was used to the fast pace. Luckily, there was an extra day in the process.

Lundberg's first flight on Friday from Beijing was canceled. He switched airlines, no easy feat when you're lugging 110 boxes of balloons - 100,000 pairs for two games.

Still, he made it to Anaheim by 4 p.m. Friday - a full day before the start of the Series.

"The stress is just running out of my body," Lundberg says as he finishes delivering CheerStix to Edison Field. "It's just like giving birth."

If the Angels and Giants run the series to six or seven games - contests that will be played in Anaheim next weekend - you can bet Lundberg will be making this mad dash across the Pacific one more time.