sporting goods vs plural

sporting goods and plural both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
sporting goods	Yes	No	No	No
plural	Yes	Yes	No	No

sporting goods (noun)	plural (noun)
sports equipment sold as a commodity	the form of a word that is used to denote more than one

sporting goods (adjective)	plural (adjective)
	grammatical number category referring to two or more items or units
	composed of more than one member, set, or kind