Why Some Sports Win Big in Fashion — and Others Don't

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 executive editor Brian Baskin. And I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. A little over three years ago, Dior signed a deal to design the Paris Saint-Germain football team's off-pitch wardrobe. It was the luxury brand's first ever tie-up with a sports club. Today, the hype around that deal looks almost quaint. It's hard to find a major football club, Formula One team, or WNBA franchise that doesn't have a fashion sponsor, or if they're lucky, more than one.

0:43And we're probably just getting started if this week's collaboration between the NFL and Veronica Beard on a line of custom blazers is any indication. Today, we're talking all things fashion and sports, and joining us is BOF correspondent Daniel Yao Miller. Hi, Dan, and welcome to the Debrief Podcast. Thanks, Brian. It's good to be back. So if high school movies taught me anything, it's that jocks live in one world and artsy fashion kids live in another. So my first question to you, Dan, did the Breakfast Club lie to me? Well, maybe it was right at the time. I think what we've seen recently in the last few years is that those two worlds, which like you say, were painted as kind of almost polar opposites, have really collided.

1:23And that's come on quite quickly. You mentioned the Dior and PSG partnership a few years ago. And even then, that was kind of an outlier in terms of the colliding of the two industries. But now, especially over the past year, we've seen brands of all kinds pile into the sports world. And I think for a long time, generally speaking, fashion brands were a little nervous and suspicious about doing deals with sports teams, athletes. But I think the last year has been a real coming together of all of that when we've seen LVMH's role in the Olympics, LVMH's role now with Formula One and sports like basketball, tennis, global football growing ever closer to the fashion industry and athletes themselves becoming fashion stars in their own right.

2:06Yeah, I remember with the opening ceremonies, some people were even saying it basically looks like almost an ad for Louis Vuitton and Dior, which just seems unimaginable even four years ago. So I guess my question is what changed? I mean, why did fashion suddenly decide this is the new frontier for marketing? I think the sports industry and various respective sports have gone through a fascinating period in the last few years in which they've kind of broken out of their typical audiences and have found global appeal. And I think the importance of social media and all this can't be understated.

2:40And the role of athletes, especially outside of America, was kind of confined to very traditional, you know, you go to training, you do well on the pitch, on the court, on the track, and you keep your mouth shut. But I think what's happened is the athletes themselves have become major brands and media businesses in their own right. And I I think increasingly fashion brands have looked to them to market their products to, I guess, groups of consumers who maybe weren't targeted by these brands previously. And we've also seen in that time, I think one of the biggest factors in this has been the rise in viewership and commercial interest in various women's sports leagues and organizations from basketball to global football, for example.

3:22And that's really opened up the sports industry, which has traditionally been extremely male dominated to a whole range of kind of women's wear brands and luxury women's wear brands that previously never really had an entry point into the sports industry. So all of these things kind of together, the rising cultural interest in sports like football as well, not just from a sporting perspective, but what these sports kind of bring beyond that has all made it a lot more of a kind of fair playing ground for fashion brands to get involved in. Dan, I want to talk a little bit about what specific sports and teams we're talking about.

3:54Like what makes a sport or a team well suited for fashion? Can you give us some examples of where this has been working well lately? Yeah, for sure. I think with all of these things, the kind of entry point into fashion has to be authentic. And there's various examples of when it works really well and when it hasn't. One example when it hasn't worked that well is, I think, Manchester City, one of England's most successful football clubs. until recently, until they changed their partner. Eight years previous to that, they were in collaboration. They had a partnership with a streetwear label called D Squared.

4:24And it was hard because obviously they signed that partnership long before sports and fashion colliding was a thing. And the clothing that they provided for these players to turn up to the games was not what you'd expect to see in your style magazines. And time after time, game after game, it was almost kind of ridiculed. And they were locked into this long deal, which they've recently got out of and now work in partnership with a brand called CP Company, which kind of is the polar opposite in that it makes more sense. One of the team's biggest fans is Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher, famous for Oasis.

4:56And they're both as well, CP Company fans. And that kind of like blend of streetwear and the fact that CP Company was a brand seen as kind of integral to British sports fandom in the 80s and 90s really makes that an authentic partnership. Another good one, a recent one, is kind of a groundbreaking one that happened at London Fashion Week recently, where a brand called Labrum London, which was founded by a Sierra Leonean designer called Fodde Dumbuya, he had a long running partnership with Arsenal, but his most recent show happened at Arsenal Stadium alongside the pitch. And this was groundbreaking because it never happened before at London Fashion Week for sure.

5:32And also it included, the runway show itself included several Arsenal players actually on the runway, which again was the first. And part of what was on the runway was these jerseys that the designer had designed for the football team, which kind of spoke about the team's connections to African history. The jerseys, colors were kind of coded in the colors of the Pan-African flag. And Arsenal is a team that has a connection to Africa in terms of the players it signed and its history as a football club going back decades. So those are examples where, you know, the partnership makes sense on a cultural level and fans can kind of buy into that authentic messaging rather than it just being kind of a logo swap.

6:07And I think it's important that some of the biggest teams in any sport on the planet are partnering with these relative, I'm not going to say they're obscure, but compared to Dior, they definitely are labels. And I think that's a real key to success that you're hitting on there. I think the contrast is something like Major League Baseball, where there's plenty of Yankees merch out there, you know, with the World Series underway. But the official licensees tend to be brands like Ralph Lauren, which have had very successful baseball themed merchandise. But I think they're leaving some money on the table by not looking a little bit beyond the obvious names.

6:42I agree. I think the best ones, like you say, are the ones that kind of are maybe a bit less expected and go a bit nicher. And I think these major teams almost in a way can signify how much they care about their local communities by putting money in the pockets of, I guess, fans who do happen to run really interesting brands or designers who are supporters of the team. And I think in comparison, having a kind of a big licensing deal is fine, but it's kind of more like the old school corporate or more merch focused collections rather than, you know, designing an actual collection that's built over a period of time and has several installations.

7:17That's actually kind of a bit more considered and a bit more fashion forward. When it comes to a brand that's looking at a team or an athlete for a potential partnership, I have to ask, does it matter if the athlete or the team is really good or having a good season? This is the eternal question. And I think this is a subject of great debate in the sports and fashion community. In most cases, it certainly helps when the team is good, just because for obvious reasons, that team is getting a bunch of good press, its players are doing great. And there's a lot to build around. But at the very least, it helps if a team kind of has star players to build attractive collections around.

7:53Brian at the start mentioned Paris Saint-Germain. They had all the money in the world backed by a sovereign state, but they couldn't really make it happen on the pitch in the biggest stage. But at the very least, it helps if the team has star players to build attractive collections and marketing moments around. PSG may never have won a Champions League, but they still managed to get Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr., Kylian Mbappe playing in the same team. And Mbappe himself was a Dior ambassador before Paris Saint-Germain signed with Dior. And that's usually how it goes. it starts off from a singular player who kind of attracts the brand's interest and they expand the partnership from there.

8:27But there certainly is precedent for scaling a sports entity along these lines, sorry. If we take Angel City FC, for example, this is an example I always give, but it's a women's football team founded in 2020, competing in the NWSL. It's a prime example of how much value can kind of be realized from creating a cultural entity out of a sports franchise that doesn't do that well on the pitch. It released collaborations with various fashion and retail businesses, launched cultural partnerships with local organizations. And earlier this year, the Disney chief executive Bob Iger took a controlling stake, which gave the team a valuation of$250 million, which was a record deal that makes it the most valuable women's sports team in the world.

9:04And that's not a bad return for a team that finished 11th out of 14 teams in the league this season with a win rate of just 25%. So it is possible, even if the team isn't actually that good at the sport they play. Or probably because if you're so good and you're making headlines every day, that might be bigger than the fashion partnership itself. There's probably more runway if you're not doing well. It was a point that came up actually in a story that I did about why fashion loves the next generation of tennis stars. Tennis is a sport where you don't have a team, but an individual athlete. And there are these new, this new generation of, of tennis stars like a Naomi Osaka or a Coco Gauff that feel more accessible and more down to earth, let's say, than maybe the previous generation like a Serena Williams or a Rafael Nadal.

9:50They often come across as polished or godlike. And maybe that doesn't resonate as much as some of these athletes that feel a little more within, I guess, arm's reach of today's consumer. What do you make of that? Exactly. I think the previous generation you mentioned came up at a time when sports consumers and the public at large had a very kind of manufactured and sterile relationship with those athletes. They'd see them on TV when they're playing their sports, after they played in kind of like closed and controlled interviews, and in maybe sometimes glossy magazine interviews. And that was essentially it.

10:25And of course, also the tabloid newspapers, whereas the likes of Naomi Osaka and Coco Goff have grown up on TikTok, and they have far more authentic and direct relationships with their fans. They're far more vulnerable with their fans, they're far more open with the audiences they build and essentially the sports fans have had insights into Coco Goff and Naomi Osaka's life since they were 16 17 teenagers and they've seen them grow they've grown with them and I think that's at the very essence of their appeal to these brands is that they do genuinely have connections with their fans and you go through the comments on their TikTok and there's people posting saying you know I've followed you since I was 16 and you were 16 and we've grown together and I love seeing you doing this and I'm proud of you.

11:03And I think although the previous generation of sports stars, the likes of Federer and Serena Williams reached almost God-like status, they never had that direct bond with fans in the same way as the new generation do. And I think that's what's so appealing for brands. Yeah. And I think that helps insulate some of these stars from what we were talking about before, you know, the ups and downs of any career. I think if Michael Jordan had had a couple of off years in the 80s, that might, you know, a lot of what became of his brand might not have happened. But, you know, Naomi Osaka took, what was it, a year off of tennis?

11:37Coco Gauff, you know, the other player you mentioned has certainly had her ups and downs. You know, she's performed very well in certain tournaments. She's kind of crashed out of others. And I don't think it matters so much because honestly, like the setbacks that they have can help their brand almost as much as the wins. Agreed. And I think sometimes we see athletes almost are able to step away from the sport that they play for a little bit to focus on other things. Or for example, in times where athletes would just have to sit around recuperating, getting better after long-term injuries, it's times now when they walk in fashion shows or design collections.

12:13one of the I think originators of the fashion sports movement is a guy called Hector Bellerin and he he was an Arsenal player he's now placed in Spain and he's coming towards the end of his career but but for years throughout the 2010s he was one of the only ones in European sports who was kind of like unafraid to show an interest in in creative pursuits and fashion and he was close friends with Virgil Abloh he walked in a Louis Vuitton menswear show all while he was kind of out injured and he got a lot of abuse online for it and a lot of kind of hatred as well from some of the football community as well.

12:43But I guess he was a few years ahead of a time where, as now, you see a lot of players taking the time out to do pursue those interests in fashion. I think there's probably a divide there between individual players like in tennis or golf and team sports. I definitely could see fans turning against an NBA player if it's perceived that, you know, them walking in a show detracted from their performance on the court. Exactly. And fan groups as well are less forgiving of players in team situations who maybe take a weekend when fans see that they should be resting to go to a fashion show. But I do see with the athletes I speak to that they often feel severely misunderstood because they train for maybe two hours of a day sometimes.

13:26And weekends they have rest days and they feel well within their rights to go to a fashion show, which takes a few hours. But it's, I guess, the optics of playing in a team sport and also showing interest in things that aren't your team's direct on pitch or on court success. Also, Dan, I think it's important to talk about what's in this for the athletes. Like we've talked a lot about what brands want out of these partnerships. But what do athletes gain, especially as they're moving away from bigger partnerships like a Nike and Adidas and courting these high fashion brands or even smaller brands?

13:55I think what athletes want these days is maybe not so much, like you say, those big traditional sponsorship deals. they're of course nice to have but I think these days athletes find that they're looking for sponsorships or commercial deals with companies and brands and in sectors that really kind of speak to their personal interest and what their fans are interested in. I interviewed Angel Reese recently and she was talking about how aware she is that you know her basketball career at best at the top level is probably you know seven to ten years long if she's lucky and stays injury free. And it means you have a very, very tiny, limited amount of time, especially in a league like the WNBA, where your basic salary isn't going to be the biggest to kind of maximize your commercial appeal and set yourself up for your life beyond your playing days as an athlete, which I guess begin in your mid to late 30s, if you have a long, successful career.

14:46And she was saying that kind of her work in fashion and her kind of ambitions in fashion are designed to set herself up both commercially and from a brand and marketing perspective to launch herself into those kind of pathways once she's finished or even if she has time while still playing basketball. She said she'd love to design a fashion collection one day. She'd love to walk for Chanel, her favorite band, or Louis Vuitton at Paris Fashion Week. And you've already seen her kind of choosing to maybe not go with an obvious candidate like Nike or Adidas and signing with Reebok because Reebok have granted her the ability to co-design her signature shoe.

15:19And she's already works with Reebok to design a kind of collection for taller people as well. So again, speaking to her appeal, her audience's interest. And again, she has a following for fashion and style. And that's the avenue she's trying to push her commercial partnerships in. You know, we've sort of talked about working with athletes and it being a partnership, but could you draw the distinction between an endorsement deal versus a product collaboration? And how are they different? And which approach do you think is more effective? And for whom? these deals are evolving rapidly there's various different types an endorsement can take with an athlete there are things like your traditional endorsement where an athlete is paid money to wear and promote the brand's products on and off their field of play there's also more intricate deals where the player reaches a certain kind of status where the brand deems them so important to make them a signature athlete and that comes with more money sometimes it comes with royalties from sales of products with their name on it.

16:17Obviously, Michael Jordan and the Air Jordan brand was the original example of that. But today we see that play out across a far broader range of athletes. And I think what we're seeing most of recently is brands kind of hedging their bets because it can be quite risky working with athletes. They're humans and they do go through tougher periods. Some of them get in trouble and there are PR risks and potential blowbacks of brands. So what brands do a lot more of now is working with athletes on almost one-off basis is tapping them for campaigns rather than signing them to say a multi-year contract.

16:48So I think what we're seeing a lot of is brands either working silently with athletes, dressing them for award ceremonies and big off-pitch moments without necessarily saying this player is a representative of our brand. Absolutely. And then, you know, the signature shoe or the signature product, obviously that's tied to a revenue target. If you're a Michael Jordan or Jordan brand, they're making billions of dollars a year. Most athletes are not probably signing deals of that caliber. It's more of that endorsement stuff. You know, I asked American Eagle CMO about why it chose Coco Gauff as a partner.

17:20They launched a capsule with her this year and he was very transparent about the fact that direct revenue was a secondary goal, if at all. It was more about, you know, hype and that halo effect and resonating with this generation of consumers, that Gen Z that looks at an athlete like Coco as relatable and interesting and accessible. How is success measured for those kinds of deals? I think what your source said was exactly right. And if you see what happens to a lot of products that come out of these partnerships, they often end up sitting on discount racks because I think I've found that these kind of collaborations aren't necessarily for direct revenue driving purposes.

17:58They speak to a very, very specific subset of people. And it's honestly either super fans of the brand, super fans of the sport or super fans of the athlete. And I guess of a total base of a large brand's consumers, that's a tiny subset. But what it's about, I guess, is aligning the brand with the star power of an athlete. And even better when it's a rising athlete like Coco Gough, because it kind of signifies that the brand has enough nous and taste and ability to seek out someone who not only represents their brand, but is a growing star in their field. And the best kind of most successful collaborations, I think, in brands' eyes are when they can grow their profile along with the stock of a rising star athlete.

18:39So I definitely don't think that revenue driving purposes are the key kind of goal for these kind of collaborations. But I guess they're often when I speak to brands, they're often measured in terms of marketing metrics like media interest value and kind of the impressions that announcements get or views of an athlete wearing a certain brand get across social media and the media in general. So this seems like a great place to pause for a moment. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're switching gears for a fun segment, our fantasy fashion draft. Stick around. You don't want to miss it.

19:17Since we're talking sports, I thought we could have a little fantasy draft. The rules are we're each going to pick one sport we think has perfected the fashion partnership. One sport that's showing potential, maybe isn't quite there yet, but definitely an up and comer. and one that we think is just never going to happen. So I will start. My sport that has perfected fashion partnerships has to be Formula One because I don't think this is a sport that was necessarily on the ordinary consumer's radar at all a few years ago. And now it's one of the hottest things in the culture generally. It's got pretty much every major brand from Tommy Hilfiger to big European luxury brands are all piling into this.

20:05LVMH just announced this massive partnership with them over a decade. And, you know, this was all essentially manufactured. This was a pretty obscure sport for at least definitely in America, but it had a kind of champagne image to it. There's a race in Monaco. And I think fashion, you know, smartly picked up on that. And the new owner of the sport, Liberty Media, really made those connections happen. And here we are. Dan, what about you? What's your pick for the perfect fashion partnership sport? For me, I'm going to go with football. I'm going to go loyal and stick with the European sport. I think football has come a long way in a long time, but football has such a fascinating history with fashion.

20:42In the 80s and 90s, when there was a real problem with hooliganism across Europe, brands like Dr. Martins and Burberry were the standard bearers and really associated with that kind of less savory aspect of fandom. But football fandom luckily has come a long way since then. And these brands are now filtering back into the sport. And I think the example I mentioned earlier, like Arsenal Football Club is a great example of a team that really understands its local community, its history, and makes relevant, authentic partnerships off the back of it. And it has a really good partner in Adidas in terms of helping it identify where best to win across fashion.

21:17And I think for me, I'd love to give an example of football, how far football has come. Burberry recently released a new campaign and it has a bunch of young English footballers in it. And part of that campaign is just a nine minute YouTube clip of this young up and coming footballer from Chelsea called Cole Palmer, who's a young English star. There's a nine minute video of him sitting down in Burberry gear fishing. No dialogue, just him fishing in the new collection. And that campaign went viral. and that's a great example of how again a company like Burberry looks to a sport like football which is open to the partnership and identifies an up-and-coming star and does something kind of innovative kind of cheeky and it can go a long way in terms of driving that attention that comes back to both the sport and the brand.

22:05So I'm going tennis if I didn't give that away during the first few minutes of our conversation. I think tennis has always had that aspirational lifestyle thing going for it that fashion loves. So it's sort of to mix sports metaphors here, a layup, I think, for fashion brands to consider tennis. And then you add to the equation new cultural factors like this growing opportunity around sister sports like pickleball and paddle. And then there's obviously been a revival if social media and TikTok is to be believed around retro trends that evoke that really vintage athletic country club vibe. And then And I said this ad nauseum today, but these young stars like Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, Taylor Fritz, they all have that digital native savvy thing around using social media and being transparent.

22:50And it feels effortless for them to be relatable. And then Taylor Fritz is an example of someone that's tapping into the WAGs culture with dating social media influencer. And there's others that are dating in that world, too, that I think broadens the appeal. So you're not just, you know, speaking to people that watch tennis on TV or that are fans of the sport, but also that social media community. Yeah, I think we haven't devoted enough attention here to the WAGs, which are probably a major driver across many sports of what we're talking about here. I would agree. So my up and comer, I can almost guarantee neither of you picked.

23:25It is professional bull riders. So that is the rodeo circuit that has launched about a decade ago, believe it or not, in the U.S. Actually, it was just sold for$3.25 billion to TKO Group, which is linked to Endeavor. And they also run WWE and UFC. So that tells you the pedigree there. Like they really know how to market a sport or whatever you call professional wrestling and turn it into something big. And I'll also say it dovetails very nicely with the Western wear trend, which has proven remarkably persistent or, you know, how many years into that Western wear boom now. And I think there's only upside there.

24:04I think this is something we're going to be hearing more and more about. Like they have rodeos in Madison Square Garden in New York, not traditional bow riding audiences. Sky's the limit there. I hesitate to call my up and comer an up and comer on the heels of that one, but I'm going to go WNBA basketball. I think it's further ahead than being an up and comer, but I think it's got runway in terms of fashion connection. So obviously Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, they've been so buzzy this year. And then the WNBA tunnel walk has become quite the fashion moment in and of itself. Then you've got the New York Liberty winning the championships, albeit controversially.

24:41And then you have Angel Reese, who recently graced one of the covers of the BOF 500. She is literally a fashion darling right now. She owns the fashion connection. She does not just wear high fashion. She's been very transparent about the fact that the WNBA does not pay her bills. So she's courting a lot of these endorsements and these fashion collaborations. I think that's an opportunity. She was just a guest of Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour at a pre-Olympics event this summer. There's the beauty element with Maial and Glossier doing a lot of WNBA partnerships and endorsements. I also think the women's basketball aesthetic has a nice natural tie in with street style that doesn't feel forced.

25:19So I'm going WNBA basketball up and comer. Well, Brian, you took me out with your call and you kept that one quiet. So congrats. I think you won that round. Sheena, that was going to be my answer. But I really do think that the WNBA is like the leader in this space for all the reasons that you mentioned and just the influx of brands into that space. And you said the WNBA has runway and it really does have the best, literally the best sports runway in the world with their tunnel walk. And the kind of entry point is given to brands like Chanel, which had never been able to kind of play in basketball before to kind of market their products.

25:54and with the likes of Angel Reese and Prada dressed Caitlin Clark for the very first time they dressed an athlete for the draft when she was drafted earlier this year. So I couldn't agree more. I would say for me, college sports in general is the biggest up and comer ever since the introduction of name, image and likeness deals in 2021. We've seen an explosion in commercial interest in stars like Angel Reese when she was in college and Caitlin Clark. But for me, my TikTok is full of the next generation of college stars. And I direct everyone's attention to someone called Paige Beckers, who is an absolute star and TikTok queen, who is at the University of Connecticut and is a basketball standout, projected number one draft pick in next year's WNBA, who's again been on TikTok since her early teens and has a following, I think over 3 million.

26:42And the level of fandom that people have for her and how coveted she is in terms of big brands, I think she was on every single front row at the most recent New York Fashion Week. And she's released kind of campaigns with StockX and beauty brands like Madison Reed. She's an all-out star. And the same with LSU star Livvy Dunn, who's a gymnast. You had someone called Jared McCain, who was an absolute star coming out of Duke University in his freshman year last year, who was drafted to the Philadelphia 76ers and about to start his first or has started his first NBA season now. I think college sports is the biggest up-and-comer.

27:16And I think for brands looking to have traction and do new and innovative things, I think sports in general is pretty saturated with fashion partnerships now. But college sports and college athletes, that's the real opportunity here. That's a really smart pick. And it's also there's a big trickle down effect there. I mean, we're seeing sports like volleyball and lacrosse that I don't think were really they weren't really a thing outside of college. Now there's professional leagues. There's social media stars. That's a great one. All right. So my never going to happen is maybe a little controversial.

27:46I'm picking golf on a professional level. We've written a lot about how golf style is evolving. It's getting a lot cooler and younger. People who play golf on an amateur level is definitely more diverse and younger than it used to be really breaking out of the traditional box there. But on a professional level, these are really hidebound organizations that are running the show there and very resistant to change. And I think there's been some modernization. But at the same time, the profession, the PGA Tour is mired in this endless conflict with the Saudi-owned LIV Rival Tour. We do not need to get into the details on this podcast.

28:25But suffice to say, I think the other component that we haven't talked so much about here to make a successful sports fashion partnership is strong management on both sides of the equation. And that is lacking in golf right now. That's fair. I have not ever gotten my fashion inspo from the PGA tour. So for never going to happen, I'm going American football. Listen, I love what the NFL has done with Veronica Beard and the Blazers. I just don't see the opportunity. knee. Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl was was lovely, but I never saw any fashion pickup from that. I just don't see the overlap. And even with the images of Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl and her friends, it just wasn't that fashion thing that I think people expect when they think about sports, meaning culture, meaning fashion.

29:13It just didn't have it for me. Plus the helmets. Plus the helmets. I mean, you can't do beauty with that. What can you do? None of the sports we talked about other than, I guess, F1, they don't wear helmets. You know, that seems to be the common denominator here. Dan, what's your pick? For me, it would be baseball. Oh, break my heart. I know you're a big baseball fan, Brian. I know we should come to talk about this after, because I think there's been some interesting recent developments. But I think for me, baseball seems to be one sport that's never really broken out to have like a true global appeal in a sense that the fashion could leverage.

29:46And I think I spoke before about how it's so important to have stars that are not just kind of famous, but also kind of have that direct relationship with the fans in a bit more modern sense where it's kind of via social media and it's a bit more open in terms of how they can interact with the sport. I think baseball is very similar to where Formula One was before the Liberty Media acquisition, where there's a lot kind of stricter atmosphere around showing an interest in things that are outside the direct line of business for a baseball organization or a baseball player. That's hampered, I think, how much the sport and its athletes have been able to do in fashion.

30:20And I just don't see the sport having enough kind of like core ingredients necessary to be a viable marketing lane for fashion brands. But I don't know, maybe it's changing. And on that note, final question for you, Dan, do you think we are at peak sports fashion tie-ups or is this early days? Well, the other day, Chanel announced it was the new sponsor of the Oxford Cambridge boat race. And if that's not a sign we're at peak fashion sports partnerships, I don't know what is. I think the last year has been crazy in terms of how much fashion has decided to collaborate with sports and events and competitions of all shapes and sizes.

31:02And I guess it's a good example, again, of a high-end brand looking to a very niche competition with an almost kind of high-end audience that's probably populated with a lot of its clientele or hopeful future clientele. There are definitely examples where this kind of peak fashion and sports moment does have potential blowback for brands and teams. There's a team in Italy called Venezia FC. It's a football team. And that was one of the real originators in Europe of the sports fashion trend. and they kind of partnered with local designers and European brands to design these really cool on-field jerseys.

31:34And recently they changed their kit manufacturer to Nike and specifically Nike's Nocta label, which is the label that runs in collaboration with Drake. And that was met with real blowback from the sports fashion community and the fans of the team as completely unauthentic. The team has no connection to America or streetwear. And it really changed kind of the visual identity of the team. And people saw it a lot as kind of a clout chasing move or a money grabbing move on the part of the team. And it was viewed kind of negatively and maybe as an example of where the sports fashion thing had gone a bit too far.

32:03I definitely think there's still room to grow, especially in college sports, like I said, but brands do need to be careful about, you know, making sure that partnerships are authentic. I think when Chanel sponsors a professional bull riders team, that's the peak. That's the goal. Dan, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. It was a great chat. Please be sure to check out Dan's article, fashion sports obsession is no accident at business of fashion.com. These and other stories are available to BOF professional subscribers only, and you can find the links in the episode notes.

32:34You've been listening to The Debrief produced and edited by Olivia Davies, mix and mastered by Eric Bria, and 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.

32:53Thank you.