Glasses on the run Newsletter #52

Hi,

I hope you are all well at the beginning of the summer season with the Euro 2024 underway and the Olympic Games around the corner.

What was interesting in the business of running

Nike is going through a rough period. In a new sign of that, a lawsuit was filed against Nike executives for misleading investors about the success of its direct-to-consumer (DTC) program. Nike has put focus on DTC at the centre of its growth efforts over the last few years. More recently, Nike CEO John Donahoe said that the company "must lean in with our wholesale partners to elevate our brand and grow the total marketplace" (Footwear News).

There are bright moments for Nike too though. It has teamed up with Hyperice to launch the Nike x Hyperice boot and vest. The boot "offers heat and dynamic air-compression massage on demand for athletes’ feet and ankles" and has apparently been tested by Elide Kipchoge and LeBron James among other athletes in various sports (Nike).

At the same time, Adidas is having its own problems. It is investigating bribery allegations against some of its senior managers in China. A whistleblower report claims that some of the company's senior staff in China has received kickbacks from third party service providers while others have received “millions in cash from suppliers, and physical items such as real estate” (Financial Times).

Finally, here is a video interview with the Strava CEO Michael Martin. He talks about a few interesting topics - Strava user growth in a number of markets and segments, seeing signs in Strada's usage that people are getting tired of social networks, as well as the importance of Strava's data for any Gen AI features. Martin makes the point that Strava now has 125 million members with more than 10 billion activities uploaded across the world (Bloomberg TV).

As always, thank you for reading,

Momchil