When we last covered pickleball, in 2019, it was just emerging as a licensing opportunity, with a number of leagues, governing bodies, collegiate teams, and sponsors signing their first licensing and endorsement deals. With pickleball continuing as the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., with average annual increases of 11.5% in participants over the past five […]
Archive | Sports
Snacking While Streaming
Food and beverage-related brands have represented one of the key sectors involved in e-sports promotions over the past year and a half, partnering with e-sports teams and organizations for live events, streamed content, and sometimes merchandise sales or giveaways. Some examples: E-sports organization FaZe Clan paired with General Mills’ Totino’s brand to create special flavors […]
Soccer Vision Off the Pitch
At least three global soccer/football players have signed deals this year, two of them announced just this month, with makers of premium or luxury sunglasses, eyeglasses, and optical frames. This continues a tradition over the past decade or so where one or two current or past soccer stars, most commonly hailing from Europe and/or playing […]
Leagues Go Large on NFTs
Pro sports leagues from around the world, along with their players associations, have been among the most active property types to date in the world of NFTs. And many tend to think big, signing long-term deals for marketplaces rather than focusing on individual collections of NFTs, although they do that too. This year, and especially […]
Picking Up the Pace
The governing bodies that oversee professional racing across a variety of vehicles and types, along with other racing-related properties, have been active on the consumer products front since the beginning of 2022. Many have signed new licensing deals (especially in gaming, toys, and collectibles), extended existing agreements, launched new product lines, retained new agents, and/or […]
Homegrown Hits
Individual teams that are members of the leading U.S.-based pro sports leagues have increasingly been pairing with local fashion labels—mostly of the streetwear genre—for clothing collaborations available only in their home markets. Clubs in all five of the major leagues have served as examples of this phenomenon: National Football League. The Cincinnati Bengals paired with […]
Just for Kicks
While collaborations between fashion labels and football/soccer clubs in Europe and elsewhere are nothing new, the landscape is expanding, with more clubs and more fashion labels entering into such agreements. The fashion styles range from luxury to streetwear to denim; in many cases the club’s main kit supplier is part of the equation as well. […]
Wrestling Groups Pin Down New Deals
Last week WWE announced a multifaceted partnership with Fanatics. This is just the latest in a string of initiatives that have surfaced in the past year or so involving wrestling-related IP. Properties and brands at the forefront include: WWE. Its long-term, global deal with Fanatics encompasses e-commerce (including a reintroduction of the WWE Shop); licensed […]
Slam-Dunk Combinations
The major athletic footwear/sportswear companies involved in pro sports-related licensing are increasingly pairing individuals from their portfolios of U.S. pro athlete-endorsers—especially NBA players—with properties from outside the realm of sports. The examples have been piling up slowly since 2019 (a few were released even before that), with the pace of new products picking up in […]
NIL Service Providers in the News
A lot has happened since collegiate athletes and other students gained the right to commercially exploit their own names, images, and likenesses (NIL) nine months ago, on July 1, 2021. For one thing, a variety of services and platforms—marketplaces, group licensing and marketing agencies, educational and back-end resource providers, and the like—have been formed to […]