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SportsClips in Boardman offers sports theme with haircuts
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Rick Camardo, above, wanted to bring the franchise to Youngstown. The Boardman SportClips recently opened to provide a sports-themed environment for customers.
Franchise combines sports, barbershop experience
By Kalea Hall
Boardman
Rick Camardo still recalls the time he spent with his father in the barber’s chair.
Camardo chose not to follow in his father’s footsteps as a barber, but has taken on the barbershop business world.
SportClips in Boardman opened at the end of last year at 1320 Boardman-Poland Road, offering a full barbershop experience with pampering, a friendly, sports-theme atmosphere and fast service.
“This is more about the experience and caters to guys,” Camarado said.
After Camarado’s father died a few years ago, he realized for the first time in 50-some years he didn’t know where to go to get his hair cut. He had a few bad haircut experiences until he found SportClips in Florida.
“I said, ‘I am just going to go to Florida to get my hair cut,’” Camarado said.
Then Camarado learned more about the company behind the haircut and decided to purchase three licenses for the Austin, Texas-based SportClips and bring it to Youngstown — an area without one, and Camarado’s home. He found a location in the late summer/early fall and opened the day after Christmas.
“They do it the way it should be done,” Camarado said.
By that he means the experience. SportClips is equipped with a TV at each haircut station and an 80-inch flat-screen TV in the lobby of the shop broadcasting the same sporting event on each TV. The shop is decked out in sports decals including the Steelers, Browns, Youngstown State University Penguins and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Clients are offered three pricing options: a junior- or senior-varsity haircut for $14, a varsity haircut for $17 or the MVP package, which includes a precision haircut, hot steamed towel, massaging shampoo and a relaxing treatment for $22. The MVP experience is free for everyone who comes in for the first time.
Stylists wash hair after the cut to make sure the extra loose hairs are caught.
“If someone is going to bring [SportClips] here, then I want to be the one who does it,” Camarado said.
He is also looking for additional locations in Stark, Columbiana and Trumbull counties or possibly another in Mahoning.
Nationally, there are more than 1,000 locations. The Boardman location employs a manager, an assistant manager and six stylists.
“I love sports and grew up in the hair-cutting environment,” Camardo said.
His father, Bob, owned several beauty salons and barbershops in Youngstown. A vintage barbershop pole that once hung outside of his father’s barbershop now hangs in Camardo’s office at SportClips.
“I think [my father] would be happy that barbershops are coming back,” Camarado said. “Barbershops used to be a place for guys to hang out.”