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- 38 - Female athlete's fight back
The English female soccer team have fought back and persuaded Nike to adopt blue shorts to protect their modesty. This is a long time coming, and from working with major sports teams, we know that being taken seriously by a brand, is hard.
This newsletter celebrates when player's changed sports equipment by creating their own brand or changing the rules.
Lioness wear Blue with pride. Period!
Concerted lobbying on the part of the England women’s football team has prompted the Football Association to switch the colour of the Lionesses’ shorts from white to blue.
This kit change assuages players’ longstanding concerns about wearing white during their periods and comes in response to an unofficial campaign on the part of senior squad members, perhaps most notably the striker Beth Mead.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
Address the Dress Code: Set, Game, Match
Wimbledon is to drop the tournament’s strict all-white dress code and allow female players to wear dark undershorts in order to address the concerns of female players who are menstruating.
The move comes after protests at this year’s tournament from the Address The Dress Code campaign, which sought to highlight the anxiety women can face when competing in traditional whites, and criticism from Judy Murray and Billie Jean King.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
Serena Williams makes better calls than the umpire
In the 2004 US Open tennis quarterfinals, Serena Williams couldn't catch a break against Jennifer Capriati. Faced with a comedy of linesman and chair umpire errors, the world's best player looked on as one bad call after another went against her, swinging the match in Capriati's favor.
The decisions were so egregious that US Open officials dismissed the chair umpire from the remainder of the tournament and apologized to Williams for the calls. But an even more significant development in the aftermath of the match was the increased pressure to introduce technology into the game that would assist in line calls; a shift which would change the game.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
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Stan Mikita's Banana Blade
Stan Mikita fondly tells the story like this: he got his stick blade caught in the doorway between the bench and the hallway to the locker room and someone came up and pushed him from behind, cracking but not entirely breaking the blade.
Angrily, he fired a puck toward the boards and noticed how much more velocity and upper movement his shot had (since he was now able to lift the puck far greater than before), so he got the idea to try to recreate the effect by essentially "cooking" a wooden stick so that the blade would bend in the manner that he wanted.
He started using his new "banana blade" during games, but the NHL had to quickly intervene when they noticed just how bent the blade of his stick really was. Mikita claims to have bent his blades over three inches, but a new rule was put into place to have them curve for a maximum of 3/4 of an inch.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
Lukas Podolski & Strassenkicker
Lukas Podolski was part of the German Football team when they won the FIFA World Cup 2014. Two years later, in 2014, this footballer founded his streetwear brand ‘Strassenkicker’. This company offers products like -shirts, hoodies, tracksuits, caps, and accessories which have a thematic connection to Podolski’s hometown Cologne.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
Mahendra Singh Dhoni & Seven
In 2016, MS launched his brand ‘Seven’. The name represents his jersey number.
Seven is a brand for footwear, jerseys, apparel, and accessories for both men and women.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
Virat Kohli & One8
The name of the brand is One8, one of the famous sports brands by Indian athletes. The name represents the jersey number of Virat- 18.
According to Forbes India, One8 earned a revenue of around US$18.9 million by June 2019. This must be bread and butter for Kohli, ultimately he was the only Indian to feature in the list of Forbes’ highest-paid athletes.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
7 Athletes You Didn't Know Were Designers
This is a great article highlighting the achievements of Nastia Liukin, Beth Newell, Bethany Hamilton and more.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
The many achievements of Rene Lacoste
Rene Lacoste has to be one of the most influential sports designers in history. He invented 2 x patented tennis rackets, a new golf club head, a new tennis ball and the pique polo shirt.
it's a fascinating story well worth a read.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
10 footballers who have launched a fashion brand
Great article from NSS Mag about professional footballers who have launched a fashion brand.
And it is not just the big names.
Learn more here 👈🧠👀
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