🏎 The growing popularity of Formula One in the United States reached absolutely new heights last week at the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Formula One Grands Prix have unique characteristics that makes the events three-day long festivals of sports, fashion, and culture, packed with celebrities of all types.
Viewed under that lens, it makes sense that PUMA Group decided to debut a new collection of sneakers and apparel at the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix. The headline of this new line is A$AP Rocky, PUMA x F1's new creative director and the leader behind the "Back to Las Vegas" project featuring Scuderia Ferrari and Joshua Vides.
For more competitively secure brands like Nike and Adidas, the addition of a new sports-culture-entertainment tentpole event in the US market is less important for them. For Puma, this is likely a strategic bet to position the brand under the aegis of the growing Formula One motorsport in America.
As the Sneaker Freaker International article below outlines, the relationship between PUMA and Formula One stretches all the way back to 1984, the first year that a F1 driver wore PUMA sneakers, Tyrrell Racing's Stefan Bellof. Since then, PUMA has been one of the biggest supporters of the sport, building relationships with F1 drivers ranging from Michael Schumacher to Lewis Hamilton and almost all of the major F1 teams.
London streetwear brand Palace and Italian streetwear brand Kappa also made a splash at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. With other sports like basketball and football kind of locked down by Nike (and to a lesser extent, Adidas), smaller brands like Puma need to own other US sports markets. Smaller, but faster growing sports will be more likely to take a bet on the smaller, but faster growing footwear brands.
https://lnkd.in/e4sP9jxG
#lasvegas #puma #palace #formula1 #formulaone #asaprocky #grandprix #kappa
Congratulation!