Sportsheets International, Inc.—usually just called Sportsheets after its first product—is an international sex-toy and bondage manufacturer headquartered in Huntington Beach, California. Founded in 1993, the company builds and sells restraint and adult products across a line of more than three hundred specialty items. For couples and scene beginners, Sportsheets is one of the most recognizable U.S. brands that made Velcro-style bed restraint feel retail-safe rather than dungeon-only: hardware you could find in mainstream adult retail, not only in leather specialty shops.
Origin: Velcro Wall to Bedroom Sheet
The company grew from a single product, the Sportsheet. In the mid-1980s Tom Stewart watched David Letterman stick to a Velcro wall on television. Running the idea of being stuck to Velcro during sex past friends and their partners, he learned something commercially crucial: many women would try it if they could free themselves easily. Stewart spoke with a Velcro representative, obtained sample material, and with a seamstress friend produced a bed sheet from the fabric. After many failed experiments at sticking a person to the sheet, Tom and his brother landed on Anchor Pads plus Velcro cuffs: cuffs hook to pads, pads grip the sheet, and the pads hold a body yet release if pulled from the corners. That self-rescue logic—restraint that does not require a key or a knife in a panic—became the product’s marketing soul and a major reason the Sportsheet became a worldwide phenomenon, especially among women who wanted bondage-adjacent play without feeling permanently trapped.
Growth, Leadership, and Mission
Since 1993 Sportsheets has positioned its catalog as a tool for couples exploring sexuality together rather than only for hardcore lifestyle players. In 1999 Tom brought his sister, Julie Stewart, on board as president to run business operations. The siblings grew the company from a garage operation into a large global firm twice named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies. More than twenty-five years on, the stated mission remains empowering people to explore sexuality while keeping partners connected. Updated Sportsheet designs continue among the brand’s bestsellers, even as the catalog expanded far beyond one Velcro bed system into a full specialty assortment of bondage and sex products.
Product Philosophy: Soft Restraint, Easy Exit
The original Sportsheet’s engineering lesson still shapes how many beginners meet bondage: restraint should feel secure enough to arouse and reversible enough to trust. Anchor pads that peel from corners, Velcro cuffs that open without keys, and bed-system modularity all signal a couple-first design language. That does not make the gear “not real BDSM”; it makes it an on-ramp. Lifestyle players may graduate to rope, steel, or heavy leather, but the cultural work of normalizing “we can try this tonight and stop instantly” belongs to products like the Sportsheet as much as to workshop educators. The expanded catalog—hundreds of specialty items beyond the first sheet—keeps that on-ramp stocked with cuffs, straps, under-bed systems, and related toys under one Huntington Beach brand umbrella.
