Universal to become exclusive Stonemaier US hobby retail distributor, for roughly $1.5m of annual business

Universal Distribution has agreed exclusive rights to distribute Stonemaier Games titles into US hobby retail, which amounts to about $1.5m of business each year.

Universal has become an authorised US hobby distributor for Stonemaier’s games, which include the massive-selling Wingspan series and other popular titles such as Scythe, and will take on sole distribution rights in August of this year.

The deal comes four years after Stonemaier picked GTS as its sole US hobby retailer distributor, in addition to retailers being able to buy directly from the publisher itself – something Stonemaier COO Alex Schmidt told BoardGameWire about half of its US hobby retailers choose to do.

He added that the $1.5m figure depended on the year and the company’s releases, saying that Stonemaier’s US business was “quite a bit larger than that” when also including the publisher’s website, selling direct to retailers, selling through Fulfillment By Amazon and the publisher’s US mass market distribution.

Universal, a long-time major player in Canadian board game, TCG and comics distribution, made a push south of the border last May through a takeover of US peer Alliance Game Distributors, following a tumultuous bankruptcy auction of the latter’s former owner Diamond Comics.

That acquisition has been followed by a recent flurry of exclusive US distribution deals from Universal, including tie-ups with Dice Throne and Isle of Cats publisher City of Games.

Schmidt told BoardGameWire, “There are certainly some synergies to be had with Universal. They’d already been our sole hobby distributor in Canada and have done a great job of that which made it an obvious choice to use them in the US as well. Them being one company across both countries allows programs to be implemented once in both regions.

“Universal is also supporting a lot of product lines from other companies that retailers want in their stores. While it’s not directly about our products, we want our distributor in a region to be a premier board game distributor who is filling the needs of our retailers across the board.

“One distributor won’t ever have everything, but Universal is doing a great job of being as much of a one-stop-shop for our retailers as they can be.”

Stonemaier CEO Jamey Stegmaier told BoardGameWire the company spent the first few years working with Aldo Ghiozzi as its distribution broker, before switching to Greater Than Games for a similar role – both of which sold to a variety of distributors.

He said Schmidt became the company’s distribution broker when he joined the company from Greater than Games in 2020, with Stonemaier signing up with GTS in the US and Universal in Canada “soon afterwards”.

Earlier this week it emerged that Stonemaier Games’ diversification of its flagship bestseller Wingspan into a trilogy of standalone titles had powered the company to record revenues of more than $25m last year.

That total eclipsed the company’s previous annual high from the post-Covid board game boom in 2021, and follows the publisher adding Connie Vogelmann’s Wyrmspan in 2024 and the David Gordon and Michael O’Connell design Finspan last year – creating a hefty boost for its overall sales.