Employment
69,851
Total employees (Census CBP)
Wholesale Trade ·NAICS 42391
NAICS 42391 · IRS SOI (C corp) · Census CBP 2023
Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers - Industry Benchmarks
$75,897/yr average annual pay, with 612 SBA loans on record for NAICS 42391.
- 5K
- Establishments
- 70K
- Workers employed
- $75,897/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $388M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated August 2026
The verdict · NAICS 42391
California leads Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers activity nationally, across 5K establishments employing 70K workers. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level.
- 5K
- Business establishments (Census)
- 70K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $75,897/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $388M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Use Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers's NAICS benchmark as a comparison point, not a forecast for one business.
Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers is reported here with financial measures from IRS Statistics of Income and workforce measures from Census County Business Patterns. The page keeps those source systems distinct, shows unavailable fields rather than estimating them, and links the underlying industry context so readers can compare the same NAICS activity before interpreting a margin or payroll figure.
Source: IRS SOI (C corporation headline) and Census County Business Patterns 2023
Benchmarking Insights for Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers
Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers sits inside Wholesale Trade.
5,355 establishments employ 69,851 workers (13.0/location) at $75,897/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Florida and Illinois.
Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers sits in the 48th percentile for employment among 5-digit NAICS industries with reported data.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$75,897/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
5,355
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment decreased by 1,879; establishment count decreased by 49. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Subscribe to this industry's release updates (RSS)Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $5.3B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 13.0
Sub-Industries
| Industry | Profit Margin |
|---|---|
| Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers NAICS 423910 | N/A |
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 10,573 |
| Florida | 4,887 |
| Illinois | 3,756 |
| Wisconsin | 3,593 |
| Minnesota | 2,454 |
| New York | 2,028 |
| Colorado | 2,005 |
| New Jersey | 1,837 |
| Ohio | 1,612 |
| North Carolina | 1,611 |
Showing top 10 of 50 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
612
Total Loan Volume
$388M
Avg Loan Size
$633K
Jobs Supported
4,396
Program Breakdown
7(a) 538 (88%)
504 74 (12%)
Top SBA Lender
U.S. Bank, National Association
38 loans in this industry
New Business Share
21.2% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 79
2021 116
2022 96
2023 85
2024 103
2025 119
2026 14
Frequently Asked Questions
How many businesses are in Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
5,355 business establishments. Together they employ 69,851 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers?
$75,897/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 13.0 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers employment?
California leads with 10,573 workers. Florida (4,887) and Illinois (3,756) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers receive?
Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers businesses received 612 SBA loans totaling $388 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $633K. These loans supported 4,396 jobs at origination. Most lending (88%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Nationwide industries with similar benchmark drivers
Two IRS/Census peer sets for Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers, both at NAICS level 5 and excluding this code so the neighborhoods are not self-links.
According to Census County Business Patterns 2023, Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers ranks #284 of 551 U.S. industries at the 5-digit NAICS level by total employment.
Similar workforce scale
Nearest peer industries by ABS(Census employment) (69,851 here).
Read with this industry: Industry employment trends · Wholesale Trade · Rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 42391 · CBP 2023 · IRS SOI
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.