SGB Executive

“Athleta is uniquely positioned to win because we sit at the intersection of a number of exciting consumer trends,” said Mary Beth Laughton, president and CEO, Athleta, during Thursday’s Investor Day presentation of its parent, The Gap Inc. The event outlined the brand’s goal to double Athleta’s sales to $2 billion by 2023 from $1 billion currently.

The Top National stories and the Latest headlines across the Active Lifestyle Market for the week of October 19, 2020, covered in the SGB Updates and delivered to your inbox every business day.

The pending acquisition of Easton Diamond Sports is expected to particularly boost Rawlings’ capabilities in the baseball and softball bat category, but Mike Thompson, Rawlings’ chief marketing officer, told SGB Executive he expects the combination will accelerate innovation across a wide range of categories for both brands and help grow the game of baseball.

According to the fifth edition of PwC’s Sports Survey, growth in the broader sports industry, including sports federations, broadcasting and marketing, is expected to decline significantly over the next few years with many industry execs not expecting a full recovery until 2023 or later. PwC wrote in its study, “Like all industries predicated on events and mass gatherings, the unprecedented health crisis brought about by COVID-19 has impacted the sports market at its very core.”

Winnebago Industries, seeing continuing strong demand for outdoor recreation, reported revenues jumped 39.1 percent in the fourth quarter ended August 29, to $737.8 million. Excluding Newmar, which was acquired in the first quarter of fiscal 2020, organic sales climbed 15.3 percent.

Twenty-five years ago, two brothers, Todd and Steve Jones had the vision to create action sports movies. Now, 25 years later, they’ve accomplished that with their adventure lifestyle media company, Teton Gravity Research (TGR) and have branched out into retail, hotels and a new TGR TV platform to work symbiotically with their original concept.

Analysts applauded VF Corp’s better-than-expected results for the second quarter ended September 26, highlighting the robust growth in China and across digital platforms and believing VF is on the path to a return to sales growth in its fiscal fourth quarter.

VF Corp. said currency-neutral growth of 42 percent in e-commerce and 19 percent in mainland China helped drive earnings and sales ahead of internal and Wall Street’s expectations in the second quarter ended September 26. Sequential improvement was predicted for the holiday quarter followed by the return to growth in its March quarter.

The Top National stories and the Latest headlines across the Active Lifestyle Market for the week of October 11, 2020, covered in the SGB Updates and delivered to your inbox every business day.

If it’s lightweight and tough enough for aircraft, it’s probably good enough for fish kayaks. That’s the theory behind Diamond Shield material, which is taking the fish kayak world by storm in its debut in the Apex Tyr — the first carbon-fiber fishing kayak.

An SFIA webinar headlined by executives at LeagueSide and Morning Consult provided optimism from community youth sports organizations on recovery as teams returned to play over the summer and early fall. However, a warning about potential disruptions as winter sports gets underway was also heard.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded Foot Locker to “Buy” as the investment firm believes Foot Locker’s momentum improved significantly over September and October, given a shift in back-to-school sales in part due to Nike product momentum. Long-term, Foot Locker is expected to benefit from Nike’s moves to tighten wholesale distribution.

Baird Equity Research and Truist Securities both raised their price target on Peloton Interactive due to the continued adoption of at-home fitness as households quarantine during the pandemic.

At a State of the Industry Roundtable at SFIA’s “Back on Track: Insights and Strategies” virtual conference, top executives at Walmart, Molten, HanesBrands, and Technogym indicated the industry continues to adjust on the fly to the continued uncertainties presented by COVID-19 and said enhanced communications across stakeholders has become critical to managing amid the crisis.

While World Tourism Day is commemorated each year on September 27 to “foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political, and economic value,” this year a dark cloud rained on its parade — concerns about one of the business sectors most affected by COVID-19 — tourism and, in particular, the adventure travel industry.