Method One motor sports activities, which routinely attracts top-tier luxurious sponsors like Rolex, is increasing its roster of companions to retailers whose core enterprise is promoting clothes at American procuring malls.
Teen clothes chains Abercrombie & Fitch and PacSun are among the many U.S. retail chains looking for to show People’ budding love affair with Method One into gross sales of F1-inspired clothes traces, constructing partly on pleasure for this weekend’s inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, the retailers mentioned.
Initially of the 12 months, the typical ticket value for the three-day race weekend was $1,667 — greater than triple that for some European races, such because the Belgian Grand Prix. Rolex paid $35 million in 2023 for a deal that features title naming rights at two Grand Prix, in response to analysis agency GlobalData.
The retail newcomers are focusing on a broader base of younger People — these monitoring the game and its drivers on social media, mentioned Jay Prasad, CEO of sponsorship analytics platform Relo Metrics.
Forward of the Vegas race, PacSun is promoting a group that features a pair of $69 ladies’s cargo denims and a $600 males’s leather-based jacket.
“We acknowledged that it is a international sport with an enormous following that’s beginning to creep into the U.S. in an enormous manner,” mentioned Richard Cox, PacSun’s vice chairman of males’s and international partnerships.
Different main U.S. gamers have already staked out a place in F1, together with PVH Corp’s Tommy Hilfiger, a sponsor of Mercedes-AMG Petronas that started designing motor sports activities group kits within the Nineties. This 12 months, the retailer launched a clothes assortment forward of the Miami Grand Prix in collaboration with Mercedes and streetwear model Awake NY, which included a $275 baseball jersey and a $130 long-sleeved emblem T-shirt.
Sponsor Puma, which has made F1-inspired clothes because the Nineteen Eighties, will promote a shredded ski masks and graphic T-shirts designed by rapper A$AP Rocky beginning Friday, forward of Saturday’s race in Vegas.
Increasing U.S. fan base
The brand new circuit is the second U.S. racetrack to open in two years since Miami was added to the F1 calendar in 2022. The race on Vegas’s famed Strip is being framed by some as the USA’ reply to F1’s iconic Monaco Grand Prix, one other avenue circuit recognized for its star-studded attendance, mentioned Conrad Wiacek, GlobalData’s head of sports activities evaluation.
Fueled by the hit Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive,” American viewership of the 2022 season on ESPN grew 28% in contrast with 2021, in response to the sports activities community. Nevertheless, the typical variety of viewers per race has fallen by 7% this season, which noticed Pink Bull driver Max Verstappen simply defend the world championship.
Different retailers and groups are looking for to capitalize on the Vegas pageantry by debuting particular collections that may be shopped by high-rolling race attendees earlier than they’re launched extra broadly. That features the Alpine F1 group, which can promote items made by Italian sportswear retailer Kappa and London skate model Palace at The Venetian resort in Las Vegas.
At Abercrombie, a spokesperson mentioned the corporate launched McLaren-licensed T-shirts and sweatshirts earlier this 12 months and that its success led the retailer “to discover licensing alternatives with extra F1 entities.”
The corporate now additionally carries graphic T’s and sweatshirts for the Williams and Alfa Romeo groups, that are priced between $40 and $90 and accessible in males’s and girls’s sizes.
