As the new year gets underway, plenty of questions linger around the active lifestyle, outdoor and sporting goods industries. The writers of SGB Executive came up with, fittingly, 19 questions that are likely to dominate headlines in ‘19, including the future of trade shows, the staying power of the athleisure trend, the effects of the trade war, the impact of channel disruption and much more. Here they are.

2018 was a tumultuous and transformative year in the active lifestyle, outdoor and sporting good industries, and SGB was there to cover every political action and channel disruption, retail rebound and corporate change, merger and acquisition.

Rewarded for its turnaround progress, Crocs saw its shares catapult 105 percent in 2018, pacing a group of stocks in the active lifestyle industry. Overall, however, the industry’s stocks delivered a mixed performance. Among the stocks losing considerable ground were Hibbett Sports, Big 5, Camping World, Skechers, Newell Brands and Vista Outdoor.

Friends who left us in 2018 included Nike’s Sandy Bodecker (above), The North Face’s Ann Krcik and Jason Hairston, founder SITKA and KUIU.

Performance Bicycle and Sears led a number of companies that landed in bankruptcy court in 2018 although the case load was lighter than recent years and a major liquidation was avoided for a change. Others major filings included Rockport, Bon-Ton, Walking Company, Remington Outdoor and AcuSport.

SGB Executive covered an array of sporting goods, outdoors and active lifestyle stories in 2018, but clearly some topics resonated with readers more than others. Our list of the 25 most popular SGB Executive stories during the past 12 months ranges from channel upheaval to companies taking a stance on social issues to new executive appointments to brands’ financial success or sluggishness.

A healthy dose of straightforward mergers and acquisitions occurred in the sporting goods, outdoor and active lifestyle industries in 2018, but a handful of unconventional deals stole the spotlight. Outside-the-box transactions—which garnered much more attention than traditional ones—included a consortium of Chinese investors and a well-known active lifestyle name purchasing Amer Sports (pictured).

With a few days to go, reports continue to arrive indicating the retail industry is heading for record holiday sales. Here, the latest holiday insights around online selling, last-minute procrastinators, returns, BOPIS demand, millennial gifting and more.

In a seminar presented by the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), trade experts at KPMG said the U.S./China tariff war may end but the underlying geo-political issues impacting overall trade won’t any time soon. As a result, a holistic “intelligent supply chain” approach that encompasses both customs and supply chain planning will be required in the future.

GoPro last week announced plans to move most of its U.S.-bound camera production out of China by the summer of 2019 to mitigate the potential impact of inclusion on any new tariff lists. With significant uncertainty continuing, here’s an update from a few industry execs from third-quarter conference calls on what they’re planning to do to mitigate the potential tariff impact.

Top headlines from the active lifestyle industry you may have missed this week, including Fanatics marking its first licensing agreement with a university, a 10-year deal with the University of Oregon to license, manufacture and sell its sports gear beginning on January 1, 2020.