PRODUCT & MARKETING
+++ Pádel Nuestro has signed Ari Sánchez and Paula Josemaría, the number two players on the young women’s circuit, to sponsorship deals
+++ Varlion’s Summum Pro S and W will be the official balls for this year’s Premier Padel tournament, to be played for the first time in Madrid on Aug. 1-6
+++ Speedo has announced a new multi-year partnership with British Swimming that will kick off at the 2022 European Aquatics Championships in Rome, from August 11
+++ Pádel Nuestro has signed Martita “Doctor of Padel” Ortega – the World Padel Tour’s current number-six player and a current medical student – to a sponsorship deal
+++ Rawlings Sporting Goods Company announced it will produce 461 physical, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) spread across four rarity levels, with physical baseball gloves tied to each NFT, marking the company’s entry into the Web3 world
+++ U.S. sunglass manufacturer Revo announced the launch of the Revo x Annika collection featuring two unisex styles of sunglasses for golfers designed in collaboration with Swedish hall-of-famer Annika Sorenstam
+++ Chinese brand 361° has been signed on as the presenting sponsor of the Surf City Marathon, which will be held in Huntington Beach, California, on Feb. 5, 2023
+++ Pádel Nuestro will be the official sponsor of the Madrid Premier Padel P1 tournament, organized by the International Padel Federation (FIP) and scheduled for Aug. 1-6
+++ Following the success of the Blissfeel, the brand’s first running shoe earlier this year, Lululemon continues its push into footwear with the launch of the Chargefeel, a brand new cross-training workout shoe
+++ Smith, a Safilo Group brand, has renewed and expanded its partnership with Alterra Mountain Company as the exclusive product sponsor of eyewear and helmets among 15 Alterra-owned resorts across North America
+++ Italian sportswear brand Kappa is the new technical sponsor of the Korea Ski Association in a four-year deal +++
RETAIL & DISTRIBUTION
+++ Adidas plans to open its first Terrex brand store in North America in November on West 4th in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighborhood with a retail space of around 215 square meters
+++ Nike is building a flagship store at the Montréal Eaton Centre in downtown Montréal, Québec, Canada, scheduled to open in spring 2023
+++ American Golf has opened a new 600-square-meter store at the Crown Point Shopping Park in Leeds, U.K.
+++ Adidas has opened a 438-square-meter Originals flagship store in Dubai Mall, pursuing its “The Collection” retail concept that debuted in Berlin in 2020
+++ Nautica, an ABG brand, opened a freestanding brand store spanning 210 sqm at Dubai Hills Mall, one of the biggest retail and entertainment complexes in the UAE
+++ Intersport Voswinkel opened its new sports experience world with around 750 sqm for the running, fitness and outdoor categories at Werre Park in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany, on July 28 after several weeks of full renovation +++
CORPORATE AND M&A
+++ Whoop, the Boston-based fitness tracker start-up, is cutting its workforce by 15 percent amid economic uncertainty
+++ According to Retail Dive, Snapchat participated in a $7 million funding round for Gen Z fashion resale platform Galaxy last week that also included investments from Floodgate, RGH Capital, Banana Capital, Homebrew and others
+++ According to media reports, the Lithuanian secondhand marketplace operator Vinted UAB has offered listed Swedish company Rebelle AB about €1.35 per share (totaling about €30 million) for the takeover of its German Rebelle marketplace subsidiary
+++ Similar to Klarna earlier this year, Canada-based Shopify Inc. is reportedly laying off 10% of its workforce as the e-commerce company struggles with slowing growth due to a decline in online purchases after previously benefiting from a pandemic-related surge in demand
+++ Frasers Group has acquired online womenswear and menswear brand I Saw It First, founded in Dubai in 2015, for an undisclosed sum +++
LEGAL & INSTITUTIONAL
+++ IOC president Thomas Bach awarded the Polish head of state Andrzej Duda with the Olympic Order in Gold in Krakow
+++ The planned link between the Pitztal and Ötztal glaciers in Austria to create a mega ski destination narrowly failed in a referendum last week, after which the planned project was shelved
+++ Gilles Lodolo is the new chief executive of the French Trade Council - Conseil du Commerce de France (CdCF) +++
DTC AND E-COMMERCE
+++ Amazon is increasing the subscription price for Prime in some countries starting in September, e.g. in Germany from €69 to €89.90 (+30%) annually due to “general and material inflation-related cost changes that result in an increase in the cost of the Prime service in your country and are based on external circumstances beyond our control”
EXECUTIVE CHANGES
+++ U.S. running brand Saucony, owned by Wolverine World Wide Inc, has hired former L.L. Bean executive Kathryn Pratt as chief marketing officer
+++ In a move to drive international expansion, Seattle-based outdoor and apparel manufacturer Filson has appointed former VP of business development Neil Morgan as president of the company, according to SGB Media
+++ JD Sports Fashion has reportedly lined up former Monoprix CEO and B&Q CFO Régis Schultz, currently president of retail at Dubai-based conglomerate Al-Futtaim Group, to take the role of chief executive after former CEO Peter Cowgill stepped down from his role in May +++
FINANCIAL REPORTING
+++ The world’s largest video portal YouTube generated $7.34 billion in advertising revenue in the second quarter of the current fiscal year, narrowly but still missing analysts’ target
+++ Meta (Facebook, Instagram) is facing its first sales decline in history as a public business, down 0.4 percent to around $29 billion +++
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