Adidas hosted a community event Ground Paris in the city’s Les Halles district, featuring public-facing BMX, skate and 3×3 basketball events that were open for the public to participate. “By engaging with these sports and the local community, we’re not just showing them the brand and exciting them about Adidas, but showing them the possibilities of sport,” says Kerryn Foster, VP and general manager of specialist sports at Adidas. “We’re particularly focused on sports like skate and BMX that are new to the Olympics, to make sure that we can showcase them not just at elite level, but also showcase everyday consumers participating too.”
Know your place
As brands jump in, Alex Greenwood, co-founder of sports collective Inmotion, warns that they should proceed with caution. “It’s a delicate balance to strike. A lot of these sports are also lifestyles and cultures, and we’re often concerned with tokenisation when brands get involved in a light-touch way.” She references skateboarding as one particularly shrouded in controversy. Pro-skater Tony Hawk told Reuters in a 2021 interview that the Olympics needs skateboarding more than the sport needs the game, while skate collectives like Skate Manchester have called out companies for entering the space purely for profit without supporting the wider community. While brands authentic to the sport, like Supreme and Palace, have been noticeably absent from activating around the Olympics.
For Corey Hill, head of global sports marketing for Oakley, it’s about focusing on relationships over partnerships: “While we will always strive to have the best performance athletes, this isn’t the only thing we look at. We want to work with people that give back to the community, resonate culturally, with a strong and engaging digital footprint.” He adds that some of these relationships are now over a decade long, including with track and field athlete Mutaz Essa Barshim, runner Andre De Grasse, and surfers Caroline Marks and Gabriel Medina. They’re also already looking to the future via actively investing in flag football, which will be making its historic debut at the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
“We support breaking, surfing and skateboarding in part because we believe that, in addition to shared values, these are areas where we can really make a difference,” says Annika Bizon, marketing and omnichannel director at Samsung UK and Ireland. Last September, the phone company announced a first-of-its-kind long-term partnership with Skateboard GB, the governing body for skateboarding in the UK, to help nurture skateboarding participation among communities. They’ve also been working with breaking athlete Karam Singh to promote people getting into the sport following this year’s debut.
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