.c The Associated Press
BEAVERTON, Ore. (AP) - Nike is entering the growing snowboard industry through a partnership with Marker International, a Salt Lake City snowboard and ski binding maker.
Under the agreement, research and design teams from both companies will create new snowboarding apparel, snowboards, boots and bindings.
Nike will begin selling the new apparel this fall, at prices ranging from $175 to $400, Nike spokeswoman Vizhier Corpuz said. The snowboards will follow in late 1999, she said.
Nike, which already has a relationship with the Canadian national snowboarding team, had been looking for a way to get more involved in the snowboard category ``for some time,'' Corpuz said.
A glance at the industry's growth figures shows why. According to Ski Industries America, snowboard sales increased 27.6 percent between 1994, the earliest year for which statistics are available, and 1996.
In 1998, snowboarding will debut as an Olympic sport at the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
Hank Tauber, Marker's president and chief executive officer, said the company will continue to manufacture ski and snowboard equipment under its own name as well as designing products with the Nike name.
Nike's move into snowboarding makes sense as part of the company's overall diversification strategy, analysts said.
``They view equipment as a natural extension of their business or the third leg of what an athlete needs'' after shoes and apparel, said John B. Rogers, an analyst with Jensen Securities in Portland.
He said he expects continued growth in Nike's equipment business. |
