In 2004 LEGO released 10 Sports sets across 4 subthemes. The largest Sports set from 2004 was
3578 NHL Championship Challenge with a piece count of 374 and a retail price of $39.99. The current estimated value of all these Sports sets from this year is about $347.98 which represents a 580.2% growth.
The LEGO Sports theme was based on a number of sporting activities that ran from 2000 until 2007. It featured basketball, football (soccer), hockey and Gravity Games extreme sports such as skateboarding or snowboarding. Most Sports theme sets included standard LEGO System elements and minifigures but also featured various new unique pieces to enable various playability functions that were characteristic to this theme and set it apart from other sports-related LEGO sets. The LEGO Group secured a number of licensing contracts which allowed LEGO to sell many of its sets with the official logos of major sports organizations, such as NBA, NHL, NHL Players' Association and Gravity Games as well as sporting good manufacturers like Adidas.
2004 LEGO Sets
2004 was a shakeup year at LEGO, coming off of 2003 with record losses. Some significant events include the release of the QUATRO System for very young children, and most notably the replacement of many long-standing LEGO colors including gray, dark gray, brown and violet and the introduction of some new colors like light nougat which ultimately became the skin tone for many minifigures. In 2004, The LEGO Group created a partnership with Ferrari and a number of LEGO Ferrari sets were released that year based on Ferrari’s Formula 1 racing cars. New themes released in 2004 included Maersk, Knight's Kingdom II and Ferrari under the Racers theme. LEGO discontinued the Adventurers Orient Expedition, the original Spider-Man theme, LEGO World City and Gravity Games.