Insights from Boating Industry’s Top 20 Dealers: Hall’s Sport Center

After attending ABC 2025, where the depth of uncertainty within our industry was made clear, Boating Industry is reaching out to its 2024 Top 20 Top Dealers to gain insight from the best of the best across our country.
We recently caught up with Hall’s Sport Center in Muskegon, Michigan, ranked number 20 on the 2024 Top Dealers list. The family-run dealership stands out for its excellence in business operations, customer service, professionalism, and marketing tactics.
Hayden Hall, son of dealership owner Harold Hall, is the sales manager across Hall’s Sport Center’s four locations. He shared that current sales are aligned with last year, which was a down year. In response to 2024 sales, Hall’s significantly reduced new boat orders for 2025, only bringing in units it didn’t already have.
Pontoons vs. fiberglass
“My father has ingrained into me, ‘don’t stop doing what you do really well.’ For us, our Bennington Pontoon Boats are our main attraction,” Hall said. The dealer is typically a Top Five dealer for the brand. Hall’s has also carried Four Winns for 35 years, and the partnership has put the dealership on the map. But today, Hall believes fiberglass boats are priced out of the market, though he hopes to see sales pick back up.
“I think people are shopping ‘bang for their buck,'” he said. “I’m five minutes from Lake Michigan, which is not a nice body of water to go boating on. It’s rough. Historically, fiberglass boats can handle the lake better, but here we are, selling 15 to 20 pontoon boats for every fiberglass boat.
“These pontoon boats, because we can put twin engines on them and they can run 55 mph with a single engine, the performance there is beating them to the punch,” he continued. “Now you have a much more functional boat that has no performance issues. The only difference is, it doesn’t look as good as the fiberglass boats.”
Bennington’s recent M Line offers a new helm and automated touch-screen, and new railing, furniture and decking. “It looks like something out of a high-end car. It’s going into their upper-end level, but it’s going to be coming down to the mid level and even the entry level,” Hall said. “I give a lot of credit to Bennington for keeping the new stuff coming out, making things versatile as far as furniture goes, and tech savvy as well.”
While pontoons have traditionally attracted older customers, he noted that the segment is becoming increasingly appealing to young families as well.

Dealer and brand loyalty
“The people buying the fiberglass boats are probably the older crowd that has always had one,” Hall said. “That brand loyalty is very strong in the fiberglass segment.” The dealership has sold to over two dozen repeat Four Winns buyers.
“It’s unbelievable, the brand loyalty,” he said. “‘My dad had one, I want one. He bought it from you, I want to buy it from you.’ I think that’s something to be said.”
While some customers are loyal to a brand, he explained that many are also loyal to a dealer. “This Top 100 and Top 20 is a huge deal for me and my family because it’s something that we hang our hat on. And I think one out of every two customers who come into Hall’s Sport Center comes to buy a boat from Hall’s Sport Center, versus whatever the brand is. They know they’re going to boat here locally. They want our service, our storage, our parts, so they come here to buy a boat.”
To ensure customers have the best experience, the dealerships use the Lightspeed DMS, shareable files to track inventory, and a scheduler for the service departments. “Our website, we’re a little different in that sense on the sales side,” he added. “I use a local place here in Michigan. We have a custom website that is like the backside of your Facebook profile. All my salespeople have a profile. They can save quotes, compare quotes and shoot customers through the website. It’s pretty nifty. Think of it as a CRM basically.”
As a Top 20 Top Dealer, Hall’s Sport Center also goes above and beyond in its marketing efforts. Check out this video:
Recession-proof
“We have a fantastic used selection,” Hall said. “My dad truly looks at it as another new boat brand. One of our four locations is strictly dedicated to pre-owned. It’s all inside. If there was something we do differently from the other Top 20, this is it. We have a 25,000 square foot showroom strictly dedicated to used boats.”
Between the dealership’s used and new boats, Hall’s offers boats ranging from $15,000 to $400,000. “I want to have something for everybody if I can, within reason, of course,” Hall said. “My 25-year-old self wanted to see how many boats I could sell, and if that was 1,000, that wasn’t good enough. Now, my 30-year-old self doesn’t care about exactly how many I sell. I want to store 1,000 because that’s how a business like ours becomes recession-proof.”
Hall’s stores over 700 boats, and this year, the team is focused on storing boats “properly” to extend service into the off-season. “[The dealership has] a storage and service program, and that’s what makes sure we keep our boots on the ground,” he continued. “Sales are cyclical, they come and go, and this is certainly not the first downturn that my father and I have experienced, and it won’t be the last that I will experience. What keeps us going is that parts and service program.”
Harold Hall opened Hall’s Sport Center in Muskegon, Michigan, in 1972. He met his wife, Shelley, while she worked for Four Winns. Today, Harold Hall is still the sole owner of the business, and Hayden Hall is the sales manager for all four locations.
“I always wanted to be part of the family business,” Hall said. While he was ready to work for the family business as soon as possible, he is grateful he attended Northwood University before returning to the dealership on June 1, 2017. Today, he sits on the MRAA Young Leaders Advisory Council, which consists of professionals under 40.



