Sports x Fashion: Who’s Really Winning?

0:07Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion, where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. And I'm executive editor Brian Baskin. From a Violet Hue WNBA runway in San Francisco to NFL tie-ups with Abercrombie and Fitch and a whole bunch of other brands, sports and fashion are colliding like never before. Sponsorship spend is soaring, with PwC predicting companies will spend$160 billion working with athletes, leagues, and players by 2030. But clearance racks are also filling up with collaborations that didn't quite hit the mark.

0:50Today on The Debrief, Mike Sykes, our sports correspondent and author of the Kicks You Wear newsletter, joins us to discuss what sports and fashion partnerships are actually working, which aren't, and why. Mike, welcome to The Debrief. Thanks so much for having me. Glad you're here. Now, this episode actually came out of a story that you and Sheena worked on together about how there are just so darn many of these sports and fashion collaborations right now. What was the tipping point that made you two realize we need to do a story about what the heck is going on here? Well, I think for me, and I don't know where the tipping point was for you, but I think when I pulled up to the Hellman's fashion house and saw NFL fashion editor Kyle Smith with the promoting, I should say, a collection of Hellman's clothes.

1:44I mean, it was, don't get me wrong. Like, it's not like it was bad. It was actually pretty good. But just the fact that Hellman's mayonnaise is now a fashion house, I guess, like that's kind of, that's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah, I didn't quite make my way to the condiments section of the fashion aisle. But But for me, it was I wrote a story a few months ago about the WNBA team, the New York Liberty and their like bevy of fashion collaborations and projects. And within that week, I think I got pitched like a dozen other like sports teams or projects at the intersection of sports and fashion. And I started to think or Mike and I together started to think about this is all great.

2:26Maybe some of it's exciting, some of it's not so exciting. But like, who's really winning here was the question we both started to ask each other was like, who's getting paid and what does the success actually look like? For me, it was definitely I mean, that Hellman's show was certainly part of it. But it was also just that the NFL, it seemed like there was a couple of weeks there where every single day they announced a partnership with some fashion brand or a watch brand or or a condiment. And it just felt like something was hitting critical mass and we were really seeing the pylon that comes with any good trend.

2:59And yeah, let's dig into it, though. I mean, which of these many, many, we could name dozens probably just off the top of our head, which of these are actually working right now and why? Mike, why don't we start with you? I think what the NFL is doing right now, in particular with brands like Abercrombie and Breitling, and now they've just recently announced a partnership with Crocs. These are deals that are sort of manifesting from prior relationships that the NFL has established with these brands. So, for example, with Abercrombie, they've had a licensing deal with Abercrombie for the last few years, and that has led to Abercrombie becoming the sort of official fashion partner for the NFL.

3:45And the same goes for a brand like Breitling, where they had a licensing deal where they made team-specific watches. And now Breitling is the official timekeeper for the NFL. And so like these are these are deals that are coming out of these previous relationships, these previous business dealings that seem to have have created a little bit of long term success. at least they're hoping for long-term success anyway. I should say that the proof is still in the pudding. We still have to see what comes from some of these Abercrombie collections that they released down the line. We have to see what the partnership with Breitling looks like as far as spreading the NFL across places in Europe and opening the league up to new audiences.

4:30But from where we were to where we are right now, you can sort of see that tangible, real progress. And I think that's the benchmark right now, at least in American sports, I would say. And Sheena, you've written a lot about some of the WNBA partnerships that we've seen these last couple years. And I guess my question for you is what took so long in that case? So what took so long? I think that's an interesting question. One of the things that I thought was fascinating that Jess Smith, who's the president of the Valkyries, which is the newest WNBA team. One of the things that she said was that for a long time, the leagues and the teams had been getting after growing women's sports in the wrong way, right?

5:07They were trying to get the exact audience that was watching the NBA to just transfer over to watching the WNBA. And what they've learned more recently is that the WNBA has a different audience opportunity. If you want to get women in particular to be interested in the WNBA and, you know, basically this idea of butts in seats, they've got to actually be interested in the team players themselves. They want to know, you know, what are these women where? What's their, you know, what's their makeup routine? What's their connection to culture? All of those things are actually way more important for women basketball fans than it would be for male fans.

5:42So I think what is driving new momentum now is that a lot of the teams and the brands understand that there's a true audience tie in now. There's a true fashion consumer opportunity around women's sports. Well, let's break down what that looks like. So with the WNBA, the league is doing some partnerships. Teams are doing partnerships. Individual players are doing partnerships. Maybe we start with what the Valkyries are doing, which was its whole other thing. I mean, I mentioned a fashion show at the beginning, but that was an actual fashion show put on by a basketball team, right? So, yes, it was an actual real runway show that had it been done in September in New York, it would have been on the CFDA calendar.

6:21It was a full-scale fashion event. They had real designers like RuPaul, kids of immigrants, dead dirt, and a whole host of others. They set 15 pieces down the runway. One was by an actual member of the team, their guard, Tiffany Hayes. The runway was branded by and sponsored by Sephora. It looked like a real full-scale fashion event. And that's something you don't see, like the level of sophistication around it, the level of sponsorship and brand engagement. So it was quite fascinating. They really took it up a notch. It wasn't that kind of phone it in partnership where you have like just a logo stuck somewhere on a court, but an actual runway show.

6:58It showed that they sort of take the fashion conversation seriously, that they weren't doing a one off, that this was a part of their identity as a new team. I do want to say like the WNBA and its players are sort of like leagues ahead of their partners in the NBA. I would say there are some like fashion forward players in the NBA, like off the top of my head, I can think of Russell Westbrook, Shea Gilgis Alexander, you know, even to a certain extent, like you got like the LeBron Jameses of the world that are like the biggest names in the sport and also have like these, these active deals with Nike and like all these other brands that they work with.

7:35But I just think the WNBA right now is sort of a breeding ground for some of these deals, in part because like the players are are so eager to find these other opportunities to to sort of spread their portfolio and spread their brand in a way, which I think is ultimately like a really good thing for the league. So then you get a player like like Tiffany Hayes, who, you know, coming into the W, you wouldn't really have thought of her as someone who was like that into fashion. But as the league grows and we learn more about these players, the opportunities come out and here she is, you know, doing her thing.

8:14And it's a really cool sort of scene. And I think it's just a very unique place in sports right now where like these sort of partnerships, not just between teams and brands or the league and brands, but players themselves and the brands can sort of manifest in these really cool and unique ways like what we saw with the Valkyries in August. And the deals are also quite non-conventional. Like it's not just the brands like Nike and Adidas, which we used to see, you know, for the last 20 years. It's like brands like OVO or like a full on fashion or beauty maker, like a Fenty or a Mael. Like they're also different than what we saw 10 years ago, not your conventional sports brands.

8:54But I think what it comes down to, like everything else, is that authenticity factor. Do you believe these players actually would use these brands or at least care enough about them to recommend them to their fans? And the ones that you both have named seem like great examples of that. Does it feel like with all the partnerships that we're hearing announced, do most of them fall in that category where you're like, yeah, that tracks or is it more, this is such a weird matchup? Yeah, I got to say there are a lot of weird ones out there. And I think that everyone kind of sees the opportunity that sports presents.

9:34And it's not just like fashion. There are just so many industries that are sort of like coalescing around sports because this is where people are gathering. Like these are events where like you talk about something like the Super Bowl where Bad Bunny is going to perform in February. And like Adidas is obviously going to want to be a part of that. But it won't just be Adidas. Like it will be focused on like what brands he's wearing, what is backup dancers wearing? If there are any backup dancers, what are the guest performers wearing that might come on stage with him? Like there are just so many opportunities that that sports presents because of the high profile events and the the massive audiences that these these large events can draw that I think everyone just kind of wants to be a part of that moment in some way, even if that means Hellman's Mayonnaise is making it's working with Zero Waste Daniel to make a collection that comes out.

10:36And it's a little weird, but it's also a little cool. I just think everybody wants to be a part of that moment. And so I think while we've seen a lot already, I think there's still a lot more that'll be coming soon. Okay. So how do you rise above the noise then? There's going to be 20 brands dressing various aspects of Bad Bunny and his halftime show, I'm sure. How do you stand out if you're one of those brands? Or pick an easier example, you know, let's talk about tunnel walks or any aspect you want. How do you make this kind of thing stick? Because it's not cheap, right? Yeah. No, I think the way to make it stick is, like you said, is finding that authentic angle to take, right?

11:20Going back to the Valkyrie example, I don't think the fashion show works if Tiffany Hayes is not really into this stuff, if she doesn't really believe in it. You have to to work with players you have to work with teams that that really want to do things the right way and and that makes sense not just for for the team but also for the the consumer that you want to to sort of purchase the the product like i i think there are a bunch of teams out there for for example so i i went to the washington spirit game this weekend and there was um the the brand dead dirt run by domo wells who also participated in the uh the valkyrie fashion show She did a capsule collection for the spirit that was like it was team gear.

12:08There were these really nice quality like sweater pieces. There are jackets, all these different things. But they all sort of like sung to the nation's capital and Washington, D.C. in ways that like fans could like authentically connect with that also really made sense on the players. Like, it's not just, you know, slapping a logo on something and just getting it out there. Like, these were things that were really thought about. And she clearly took time to develop this collection. And I just think that by and large, with a lot of teams, with a lot of leagues, like, we just don't really see that sort of thoughtfulness, that care coming from some of the things that they're putting out there.

12:56I put this in the story, actually. The one that always comes to my mind is the Chelsea and OVO collection. You could tell immediately upon seeing that, it's just like, okay, this is kind of a logo slap type thing. And even the fans in the comment section on Instagram were like, this isn't it. But this is also kind of a thing that I think OVO does as a label. Like I remember they had these NBA finals jackets that were like, I don't know, it didn't make a lot of sense. It just didn't make a lot of sense. And I don't think people were that into it. But those are the sort of things, those are the sort of sorts of collaborations that I just don't think work in this space that well.

13:40I think the more of these that you see, the more obvious it's going to become the ones that are phoning it in. Like the story talks about this intersection being so hot, like almost hotter than its parts. Like sports and fashion at the intersections may be hotter right now than fashion and sports separately. One of the things that Jess Smith talked about with the Valkyries is like bringing in top tier talent to execute on it. So she brought in this stylist, Brittany Hampton, that's done stuff with Russell Westbrook and all these different NBA players at the intersection of sports and fashion. So she's a stylist.

14:11She's a culture curator and all the other fancy names we use for people like that. But they took the collections seriously. So they take these, whatever they do as a merch opportunity or whether it's a fashion show that they put on, they treat it like a real fashion product. And I think that's what brands and leagues get wrong is like, oh, it's so hot right now. Let's just pile in and do something. Anything will do. And people see through that. We'll be back with more of The Debrief right after this.

14:43let's talk about how you actually measure the success of one of these i mean sure there's we can judge whether it was successful on fashion grounds but how are the brands and the teams or the players determining if this was a good idea or not in retrospect mike in your story you had this great example where you talked to warby parker just partnered with a with a college uh football player, Arch Manning, famous last name, obviously, but kind of an unproven talent. And again, college student in a multi-year deal. And they weren't saying, hey, we want this guy to sell X number of eyeglasses, right?

15:20They had different metrics. Right, exactly. So what they were focused on in their partnership with Arch Manning is like the following that he generates for them. So they want him to bring in, like, obviously, like you're going to hook in the Texas fans with the the Texas starting quarterback, but they're looking for younger audiences. They're looking for, for people who, you know, might not necessarily be thinking about a premium hour. Like Warby Parker is not the first brand that's going to come into the, the average college students mind. Like, that's just not, not how it goes, but like Warby Parker is hoping that the partnership with Arch Manning sort of changes that and opens them up to this new audience.

16:07And they also are very focused on the scholastic element of the partnership. So I know they're having Arch do these initiatives for them that will get students out and get them actual glasses, which I think is a really cool thing. And so something like that is interesting because it's not just the cultural halo that everybody likes to talk about. And it's not necessarily the financial aspect. It's not the money that the partnerships generate, which I'm sure they want to make money. They want to sell glasses. At the end of the day, this is a company that sells glasses. But I thought it was interesting that they took a sort of wider vision on this partnership that sort of deviated from those two core tenets that everybody likes to talk about when it comes to partnerships like this one.

17:00You know, it was interesting because one of the questions, the main questions we set out to answer when we did this story was around, you know, what is success not? Right. So like we knew probably early on that a lot of these brands, a lot of these athletes, a lot of these teams were going to say we're going to do that marketing halo. Like we're not looking to make millions of dollars in revenues on some of these drops and some of these collabs. We knew that was going to be the case. But when it's sort of hazy, like, oh, we want to get people interested. We want to like eventually have more butts and seats at games.

17:30It can be hard to tell what success is not. On your side of the reporting, did you get a sense from brands, leagues, teams, athletes, what success is not or what is failure? Yeah. So one of the examples that we bring up in the story is the Veronica Beard example with the NFL. So they had this partnership where they produced these different team-centric jackets. So they have these blazers that had like team logos on them. And I would say that honestly, like most of that sold in some capacity. Like if you go on the site right now, there's still some of that product left and it's like deeply discounted, 75 to 80 % discounted, which is just not a good look.

18:16Like nobody, no brand wants to see that, right? Like that's something that that you absolutely do not want to see. And so like if we're talking about what failure looks like in this space, I would say and maybe this is not the most generous reading of the partnership, but I would I would just say that like flat out like that. You have to kind of look at that as as a failure. And so I asked the NFL directly about that, about that partnership and what they thought about the result with these jackets sitting there 75 to 80 percent off. And they flat out say, like, look, the partnership, we still we love Veronica Beer.

18:55We love what we produce. We love the partnership. And maybe it didn't work out the way that they wanted it to work out. But they also didn't rule out working with Veronica Beer moving forward. They just reiterated that when you go into one of these partnerships with a brand like Veronica Beer, you're kind of while you want it to automatically succeed. There are things that you can take away as far as like what you produce, how much you produce, where you produce it, and sort of who your core audiences are for these things when you produce them. And so that's sort of the way that the NFL is viewing that partnership in particular.

19:35But I think if we're talking about failure or what success doesn't look like in this space, I think we have to kind of go to that example specifically in the story. I don't want to say that it's unfair, but that's just kind of the way that things go sometimes. I'll come to a mild defense of Veronica Beard on this one, because one thing that worked in their favor is that they were early. They announced this partnership maybe a year ago, which is way before the huge rush into the NFL in particular. And I think they probably got like a decent marketing bump from that initial announcement. And it does seem like a lot of these jackets sold.

20:19I just think maybe there's aren't enough. Maybe they overestimated how many LA Chargers fans wanted to buy a thousand dollar jacket with that team's logo on it. But that's, you know, that's a, that's a small problem in the grand scheme of things. So I, I, I would take the NFL at their word that net net is probably was a, was a mild, qualified success if you look at the entire picture here. Yeah. And I would also say that the NFL in general, the way that they think about their partnerships after talking with them for this story, I think they take a holistic view with these things. I don't think the league is looking at any singular partnership as a success or failure.

21:02I think the league is viewing them all as one big cohesive thing that they're trying to do. They're trying to like insert themselves into the fashion space. And so even if something like Veronica Beard doesn't necessarily sell through, I think there are positives that they're taking away from that. And they're using that to do something like what they're doing with Abercrombie right now. You know, and so so ultimately, I think the league wouldn't like the league wouldn't wouldn't categorize that as a failure. But like if we are looking at things through like a black and white lens and I guess like you like maybe this is just me being harsh.

21:41But the thing that I think is interesting from like a brand and league and team side right now is that with women's sports, a lot of this goes back to the NIL deal. So, you know, up until 2021, college athletes could not monetize their name, image or likeness. And that changed that year. And so you saw, you know, college athletes like Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. I mean, they were becoming brands in their own right before they ever signed a WNBA contract. And so that's sort of new. And I think brands and teams and leagues have to compete with that and offer them something else. So, yes, Angel Reese, you can go get your own deal with fill in the blank beauty brand or fashion brand.

22:20But what if we helped offer some of that up for you? And the elephant in the room here is, you know, that's especially important now because the WNBA and these players are in the middle of a very contentious negotiation around that collective bargaining agreement where these women players are asking for a larger share of the pie coming from, you know, the butts that they get into seats and some of the other partnerships that happen for the league. And I think this is one to watch. The jury is out, but this is one to watch. And I think fashion deals can be a bargaining chip on both sides of that equation.

22:54I also, on that point, especially in women's basketball, I think on the NIL space, we've seen stars like Angel and Kaitlyn come up. But there are also stars in a college game right now in Juju Watkins and Flauja Johnson and so many others who are doing things in college that will make their brands so much bigger once they hit the W. Like these women are doing deals with Unrivaled. They have all these different beauty deals. They have these sportswear deals, activewear deals. Like it's just a space that's kind of blowing up right now. And so I think it's just a really interesting spot for women's basketball to be in right now.

23:41Although I get a little queasy, especially if we're talking about compensation, that you can't just be good at the game anymore. You have to be charismatic or attractive or both or want to do deals with brands. Not everyone wants to endorse a beauty product or a fashion brand. They just want to play basketball. And I kind of worry about the athletes who don't want to play this game now that is such a big part of the sports world. that's a discussion for Kathy Engelbert in the I don't know I was going to say who doesn't want to endorse a beauty product or a fashion brand but that's just me and my bias this episode brought to you by Road Podcast Mike and Road Beauty not really thank you very much for joining us Mike this was a fascinating discussion and thank you Sheena also for being both host and guest today I'm not giving up my day job.

24:39Thanks, Sheena. Thanks, Brian. Please be sure to check out Mike and Sheena's article, Sports and Fashion are Tighter Than Ever, But Who's Really Winning? at businessoffashion.com. These and other stories are available to BOF Professional subscribers only, and you can find the links in the episode notes. You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria. I'm Brian Baskin. And I'm Sheena Butler-Young. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.