Reading This Blog Will Make You Stronger, Faster

Grow a beard for the NHL playoffs. Lift your rally monkey to the sky. But don’t count on that colorful band around New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees’s wrist to give a lift to your fantasy football team.

Consumers have grown suspicious of Power Balance’s $30 athletic wristbands—which promise to alter the body’s natural energy flow to make it stronger, well-balanced and more flexible—leading sales to plummet and prompting the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday.

Questions arose last year when Australia’s consumer-protection watchdog investigated the California company’s so-called “holographic technology,” which claims to tune the body’s frequency for optimal athletic performance when the wristband’s two dime-sized holographs align around your wrist.

A round of class-action lawsuits followed, reciting the commission’s findings and spreading negative publicity that deflated consumer interest in the bracelets, which are sold in more than 3,300 retail stores and on the company’s website.

The company’s revenue, which topped $52 million last year, has since slowed, hitting just $20 million through the end of October, according to the company’s bankruptcy attorney, Garrick Hollander.

“There’s too much litigation,” Hollander told Bankruptcy Beat.

But even as the sports technology grows close to becoming just another superstition, athletes haven’t seemed to care. The company’s website boasts endorsements from sports stars like NBA Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers, Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp and Los Angeles Lakers forward and Khloe Kardashian husband Lamar Odom.

To cope with the financial hardship, the company filed for bankruptcy with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana, Calif., with a plan to sell its business for $6 million to a company that’s related to the Chinese manufacturer that makes the bracelets, Hollander said. Under the proposal, the company would conduct an auction to see if any higher bidders emerge.

The company was founded by brothers Troy and Josh Rodarmel and employs about 40 people at its Lake Forest, Calif., headquarters.