industry sporting goods founded 1970 headquarters atlanta georgia usa products rackets footwear apparel accessories ball machines tennis equipment website www.princetennis.com prince global sports llc based in atlanta georgia is a manufacturer and distributor of racket sports equipment footwear and apparel for tennis squash and badminton . contents 1 history 2 tennis 2.1 sponsored male players 2.2 sponsored female players 2.3 former players 3 squash 3.1 sponsored male players 3.2 sponsored female players 3.3 former players 4 references 5 external links history edit the company was founded in 1970 by robert h. mcclure of princeton new jersey hence the name prince as a manufacturer of tennis ball machines and went on to manufacture rackets . howard head founder of the head ski company took tennis lessons following his retirement his company was acquired by amf in 1969 . he used one of the tennis ball machines made by prince but was frustrated by his slow improvement in the game . head joined the company in the early 1970s and developed the company s signature oversized tennis racket . although the prince classic aluminum racket was the first oversized racquet to be patented the bentley fortissimo preceded the patent by two years causing germany to invalidate it . the company has been owned by a variety of different firms including at the benetton group of italy and chesebrough ponds 1 and nautic partners a providence rhode island based private equity firm . in july 2012 authentic brands group officially acquired the prince brand name from nautic partners . by september 2012 the waitt company an omaha nebraska based investment company agreed to a 40 year license to operate the prince brand across north america south america europe middle east africa australia new zealand and india . prince global sports is now operating as a subsidiary of athletic brands holding company which is majority owned by the waitt company . the company s portfolio of brands also includes ektelon viking and battle . in march 2014 prince announced that they were moving their headquarters to atlanta . tennis edit sponsored male players edit johan brunstr m raven klaasen alejandro gonzalez bob bryan mike bryan kimmer coppejeans oliver golding john isner lucas pouille james ward sponsored female players edit jelena jankovic taylor townsend former players edit andre agassi michael chang guillermo coria albert costa juan carlos ferrero patrick rafter gabriela sabatini maria sharapova pam shriver squash edit sponsored male players edit ramy ashour james willstrop tarek momen saurav ghosal sponsored female players edit nicol david camille serme annie au emily whitlock rebecca chiu delia arnold sarah jane perry former players edit peter nicol john white david evans cassie jackman references edit fundinguniverse chesebrough ponds external links edit prince tennis this tennis related article is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e this article about the game of squash is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title prince sports & oldid 743264593 categories sportswear brandssporting goods manufacturers of the united statestennis equipment manufacturerscompanies established in 1970manufacturing companies based in atlantatennis stubssquash stubshidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parametersall stub articles navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages espa olfran aisitaliano polskisimple englishsvenskat rk e edit links this page was last modified on 8 october 2016 at 21 42 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view