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      in Tennis

      With Tennis Style, It’s Hard to Ace the Classics

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      While Grand Slam season often forecasts men’s wear innovations, the elegance of a crisp white look is tough to beat.For at least some watching Novak Djokovic win his seventh Wimbledon title and 21st Grand Slam crown on Sunday (surprising almost no one), there was one largely unacknowledged pleasure in the experience.Sure, there were his bulletproof defensive skills and wizardly return of serve. Add to that the eye-candy thrill of watching Mr. Djokovic, a 6-foot-2 Serb, flaunt his Gumby-like flexibility and shredded physique (achieved with a no-gluten diet and a state-of-the-art training regimen) in a three-hour, four-set final. Yet for those who care about these things — fashion critics, for instance — the elegance of Mr. Djokovic’s play benefited from an anachronism dating to the tournament’s beginning in 1877. That is, the strict white dress code still enforced by the storied All England Club.Modern players tend to bristle at the tennis whites that were originally conceived to curb or conceal evidence of perspiration — considered unseemly among the society sorts who long had the lock on this sport — and that are required to be worn by players at Wimbledon from the moment they enter the court area. Andre Agassi famously so disliked the Wimbledon dress code (“Why must I wear white? I don’t want to wear white,” he wrote in his 2009 memoir) that he refused to play in the tournaments from 1988 to 1990, holding out for his preferred raucous, colorful sportswear before caving and then going on to win his first and only Wimbledon title in 1992.Far from obscuring players on camera, regulation whites outline their moves more crisply, as Novak Djokovic proves in the Wimbledon final on July 10.Alastair Grant/Associated PressRule creep is common. A degree of pushback is understandable in light of a rigid dress code that forbids nonwhite elements except in trim on outseams, necklines and shorts legs, as well as in logos that are wider than a centimeter. Even cream or ivory is considered beyond the pale, and orange-soled sneakers landed Roger Federer in trouble when he wore a pair to the 2013 tournament.Tradition trumps comfort at Wimbledon. Look to the controversy that greeted Rafael Nadal when he wore one of his trademark sleeveless white quarter-zip tops in 2005. Gentlemen, the thinking goes, don’t show off their guns. (For present purposes, it is the male athletes who are the focus.)Still, what fascinates this observer is the question of why — aside from paid branding opportunities or a dubious assertion that took hold in the late 20th century that color reads better on TV — an athlete would want to deviate from a uniform that is simultaneously practical and sartorially foolproof, one with a rich history of influence on style outside the sport.Even a cursory survey of its 20th-century history demonstrates how potent an effect tennis has had on fashion. From the 19th century on, the courts have been both a laboratory for innovation and, more often than you might imagine, a mirror of social change. Take the elegance of players like René Lacoste, the French tennis player of the 1920s nicknamed the Crocodile, who replaced the woven or woolen tennis whites that were then customary with cooler and more efficient long-tailed, short-sleeved cotton polo shirts with the ubiquitous crocodile monogram. The shirts would become a popped-collar staple of preppy wear.Fred Perry, left, looking runway ready in a signature polo, in 1935. Popperfoto/Getty ImagesRafael Nadal flexes his big guns in a controversial sleeveless top at Wimbledon in 2005.Phil Cole/Getty ImagesConsider, too, the unfortunate case of Fred Perry. A stylish former world No. 1-ranked player, Mr. Perry won eight Grand Slam singles titles in the 1930s, including three consecutive Wimbledon titles from 1934 to 1936. He went on to found a brand best known for white polo shirts trimmed with a yellow and black band, and the company came perilously close to foundering in 2020 when its polos were co-opted as a militia uniform by the far-right Proud Boys and it was forced to withdraw sales of its polo shirts in the United States and Canada.Paragons of tennis elegance appear in every era. At one end of the 20th century, there is, for example, an International Tennis Hall of Fame fixture like Budge Patty — one of only three Americans to win the French Open and Wimbledon men’s singles championships in the same year (1950) — and a sophisticate renowned for his easy tailored style both on and off court. Further along the arc stands Arthur Ashe, the only Black man to have won the singles titles at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open, and a canny image manipulator who underscored his cerebral style of play with a Black Ivy cool — tailored shorts, snug polos, horn-rimmed glasses or oversize shades — intentionally engineered to counter racial stereotypes that still plagued the sport in the ’70s.Always restrained, Arthur Ashe brought graphic flourish to his tennis white at the U.S. Open, circa 1978.Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesStyle in that bad old era tends to get an unfair rap. And yet, while it is true we’re unlikely to see the lawn-trousered, Fred Astaire elegance of an athlete like Bill Tilden — an American champion whom The Associated Press once voted the greatest player of the first half of the 20th century — that is no reason to forget or dismiss the contributions of players as well remembered for their sex appeal or wild antics as for their sartorial savvy.We are talking here about John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, rivals both on center court and in the ’80s fashion arena. With his bum-hugging short shorts and banded track tops, Mr. McEnroe became a poster boy for the Italian sports apparel maker Sergio Tacchini; Bjorn Borg, the sexy Swedish longhair in a headband, helped put another Italian heritage label, Fila, on the map. And suddenly, those retro looks and those brands — with their taut proportions and overtly sexy celebration of the athletic male anatomy — look fresh again both for sports aficionados and for those who wouldn’t know an ace from an alley.Once deemed the greatest player of the early 20th century, Bill Tilden is style personified at the Davis Cup in 1927. Bettmann/Getty ImagesBjorn Borg, here defeating Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon in July 1978, snuck color onto center court in wristbands striped like the Swedish flag.Leo Mason/Popperfoto – Getty ImagesAt other Grand Slam events, Messrs. McEnroe and Borg both pushed their Fila-Tacchini looks to the limits, with banded sleeves, tone-on-tone jackets, pinstriped patterns, colored tab waistbands, terry wristbands in national colors or details that may never have passed official muster at the All England Club.The truth is, though, that nothing additive was really needed. Whether on clay, grass, synthetic or cracked urban concrete, it is largely pointless trying to improve on tennis whites. More

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      in Basket

      From Tattoos to Malcolm X T-shirts, N.B.A. Hopefuls Talk Style

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      Three top draft prospects — Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams — explained their approach to fashion. “I feel like I don’t really miss when I put fits on,” Holmgren said.Paolo Banchero lifted the right sleeve of his black hooded sweatshirt to point out the green tattoo ink on his forearm. His long arms make up most of the 7-foot-1 wingspan that positioned him as one of the top prospects in the N.B.A. draft on Thursday, but they also tell a story.His right arm is packed with tattoos that depict crucial parts of his upbringing and make statements about his style: the Space Needle and the rest of the skyline of his hometown, Seattle, sit on his right shoulder; “19th and Spruce” is written on his inner biceps as a nod to the Boys and Girls Club where he began playing basketball; and on his inner forearm is the logo for his friend’s Seattle-based Skyblue Collective clothing brand, which he sports often and says is “a part of him.”Banchero has a tattoo on his right arm that reads “19th and Spruce,” a nod to the Boys and Girls Club in Seattle where he grew up playing basketball.Bob Donnan/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBanchero, 19, who led the Duke men’s basketball team to the Final Four this year, uses his tattoos and outfits as a form of self-expression, a subtle way of sending messages. At a pre-draft style event at a Brooklyn barbershop on Tuesday, he wore an all-black luxury designer outfit, which he said was tame compared to what he would put together on draft night.On Thursday, he wore a bright purple suit as the Orlando Magic selected him with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.Banchero and many of the top players in the 2022 draft class already have a public persona, but it will be boosted immensely if an N.B.A. team signs them. While playing well and winning championships are paramount in how an N.B.A. player is perceived, style and image are a close second. After all, this is the league in which Los Angeles Lakers forward/center Anthony Davis made his unibrow a celebrity in its own right, even trademarking the phrase “Fear The Brow” in 2012.N.B.A. athletes have made it easy for fans to appreciate their fashion sense, turning their pregame entrances into their own version of the Met Gala. Fans on social media quickly share photos and videos from players’ 30-second walks to the locker rooms from cars or team buses at N.B.A. arenas. GQ magazine crowned Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the N.B.A.’s most stylish player of 2022, over Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker, because “the guy cares about getting dressed.”Jalen Williams, a forward from Santa Clara University and a potential first-round pick in the draft, is looking forward to the pregame catwalk. On his cellphone, he has multiple search tabs open for different clothing brands. He laughed and pointed at Jaden Hardy from the G League Ignite, another potential 2022 draft pick, when he saw that they were wearing the same black sweatpants from the brand MNML at the event on Tuesday.Williams said he tried to balance being conscious about what he wore while having fun with his style, because he knew that he would be judged by his outfits and appearance. He incorporates clothing from less popular brands into his wardrobe to encourage those who may look up to him to be “comfortable in their own skin.”Jalen Williams said fashion was important to him — even in video games.Young Kwak/Associated PressWilliams at the N.B.A. draft on Thursday.Arturo Holmes/Getty Images“I think that’s the biggest thing that gets misunderstood in fashion,” Williams, 21, said. “You feel like you have to please whoever or look a certain way, but whatever you like is what you like.”Williams said he also tried to support small brands and promote social-justice issues through his clothing. He sported a jacket from Tattoo’d Cloth, which made custom embroidered jackets for some draft prospects, and tagged the brand in an Instagram story. On Juneteenth, he wore a shirt featuring Malcolm X, and he frequently wears different kinds of apparel supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. “I think as athletes, it’s important to inspire people and kind of spark a change and use our platform,” Williams said. “Sometimes, not even saying anything but wearing the clothes is really important.”Williams’s style goes beyond his outfits, too. As a high school sophomore, he decided to don a single braid while keeping the rest of his hair unbraided, hanging the braid at eye level. That has become a popular style in the N.B.A.“I’m not going to say I started it, but I might’ve started it,” he said jokingly.Fashion has long played a significant role in Williams’s life, back to his childhood when he began using the My Player mode in the N.B.A. 2K video game, in which users create players and can style them for hanging out in a virtual park. He is serious about the fashion choices of his My Player.“You can’t pull up to the park in brown and gray,” Williams said, mocking the generic outfit given to the created players. “No brown shirts!”The Oklahoma City Thunder selected Williams with the 12th pick in the draft on Thursday. He wore a dark pinstriped suit and large sunglasses with his famous single braid draped over them.Chet Holmgren, who is seven feet tall, said it was hard to find clothes that fit his long and lanky frame when he was younger.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHolmgren at the N.B.A. draft on Thursday.Arturo Holmes/Getty ImagesFor the seven-foot center Chet Holmgren, who played at Gonzaga and was expected to be a top-three pick on Thursday, being fashionable was a challenge growing up. He could never find clothes that fit his long and lanky frame, and he could not afford the custom-fitted outfits he adored. He ridiculed his most impressive childhood outfit: Nike socks, basic T-shirts, basketball shorts and basketball shoes. In high school, Holmgren said, his style skyrocketed as he turned to resale websites and brands that had clothes in the large-and-tall sizing. Now, he is confident that he is the most fashionable prospect in this draft class.“In my opinion, I’m the swaggiest dude beyond just what I am wearing,” Holmgren said. He further explained that fashion was about more than just the pieces a person was wearing.“You could spend $10,000 on an outfit, but you might have a trash outfit on,” he said. “You might have the right pieces, but if you can’t put them together, the outfit’s not going to be great.”Like Williams, Holmgren is looking forward to the N.B.A.’s pregame runway, and he isn’t apprehensive about his style choices.“I feel like I don’t really miss when I put fits on,” Holmgren said. “So whatever I’m wearing, I’ll be all right.”Holmgren was drafted second overall to the Oklahoma City Thunder. His diamond chain, which featured a pair of dice, shone in Barclays Center as he walked to the stage. He chose dice for his chain, he said, because he was “big on betting on himself.” More

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      in Soccer

      Nigeria Adds Up the Costs of Missing the World Cup

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      Failure to qualify for Qatar has condemned Nigeria to a humbling summer instead of months of World Cup hype. Then there’s the fate of its famous jersey.In those initial moments of agony in March after Nigeria was eliminated from qualification for this year’s World Cup, the most immediate thoughts of Amaju Pinnick, the president of Nigeria’s soccer federation, were of the disappointment being felt by his 200 million countrymen in Africa’s most populous nation.He needed only to look down on the scenes unfolding inside Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, Nigeria, to see what it meant. Thousands of angry supporters had poured onto the field after the final whistle to vent their anger, knocking over the advertising boards, chasing the players from the field and clashing with security officers. “My first thought,” Pinnick said, “was to resign immediately.”But his mind quickly drifted elsewhere, too. In those first days after Nigeria’s elimination in a home-and-home playoff against Ghana, Pinnick said he would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about another group feeling the sting of the team’s failure.“Oh what have we done,” he said, “to Nike.”For any country accustomed to attending the World Cup, the consequences of missing the tournament are substantial. The United States Soccer Federation stumbled through just such a soccer catastrophe in 2017, and Italy has now done it in two World Cup cycles in a row.For Nigeria, a leading light of African soccer that until this year had failed to qualify for the World Cup only once since 1994, the emotional and financial cost of elimination may be best told through the demise of a single deal: the carefully calibrated plan, worth millions of dollars and priceless publicity, linked to the release of a new national team jersey made by Nike.Nigeria’s jersey for the 2018 World Cup had been a breakout star, creating a frenzy and the type of buzz more expected from an appearance by one of the game’s star players than the arrival of a piece of apparel. Brightly colored and featuring a design that set it apart from the more staid, conservative offerings of most of the other teams at the tournament in Russia, Nigeria’s jersey became a must-have that summer, selling out almost immediately.Nigeria national soccer gear in London in 2018. It didn’t stay in stores for long.Frank Augstein/Associated PressNike received at least three million orders for the $90 shirt even before it went on sale. Lines formed at the company’s flagship stores in London and other cities on the day of its release. When it was finally made available online, it sold out in three minutes.Four years later, Nike and Nigeria — whose federation officials have sought to take full advantage of their brand through their relationship with the company — were hoping to build on that success with a new design this summer.“Nike has been very religious about us,” Pinnick said. “I feel very, very bad — I feel like crying when you mention Nike. They went all the way to bringing out what would have been the best jersey again in this tournament.”The World Cup is a major sales moment for Nike, which outfits some of the tournament’s most prominent teams, including the current champion, France, but also the United States, England and Brazil, which has won more titles than any other nation.Designing and manufacturing World Cup jerseys is not a short process, either; it typically takes about two years before the products appear in stores. Pinnick’s reaction, then, was understandable: Nigeria’s failure to qualify will mean a colossal loss in what the soccer federation could have expected to reap from its share of sales, he said. (Fans of the shirt will still get a chance to own one: The shirt will be released, presumably amid much less excitement, in September.)Pinnick estimated that as many as five million jerseys might have been sold after qualification, though it is unclear how many jerseys Nike was planning to produce; the company declined multiple requests to comment for this article.Joe Aribo and Nigeria lost to Ecuador, 1-0, in a friendly on Thursday in New Jersey. It was the team’s second defeat in a week on its United States tour.Tim Nwachukwu/Getty ImagesThrough its contract with Nike, Nigeria was entitled to a royalty of about 8 percent of each sale, Pinnick suggested. It would also have received a further $1 million in bonus fees from the company for making the World Cup. Those payouts, as well as additional eight-figure paydays from FIFA just for playing in the tournament, most likely would have meant a doubling of the Nigerian federation’s annual revenues of $20 million — a figure that was less than a tenth of what the biggest national soccer associations in South America and Europe generate.Shehu Dikko, the vice president of the federation, said a significant amount of the money earned through qualification would have been allocated before the tournament, on items like player bonuses, tuneup matches and training camps. (The team is currently in North America: It lost to Mexico on Saturday in Texas and again to Ecuador at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey on Thursday night.) “It is a huge financial blow for us,” he said, “and we have to recover.”There is another element of Nigeria’s failure, though, that is much harder to quantify. Over the decades, the Nigeria men’s soccer team, particularly when it is performing at major tournaments, has become a rallying point like no other for a population cleaved by social, ethnic and religious differences.“Football in Nigeria is life — it’s more than anybody can explain with words,” Dikko said. “You have to feel it. Nigeria has over 500 tribes, so many traditions, but football is the only activity that breaks through all of our fault lines. Once there is a football, everybody is a Nigerian. Nobody cares who you are, what you do or what language you speak. So football is more than just a game for us. It’s what binds this country together.”“Football is more than just a game for us,” one Nigerian official said of the sport and the national team. “It’s what binds this country together.”Afolabi Sotunde/ReutersThat level of interest and passion, though, means there also is a sharper focus on the performance of the federation.Under Pinnick, who assumed the role in 2014 and is the longest-serving soccer president in Nigeria’s history and who is also a member of FIFA’s governing council, Nigeria has had a mixed record. While he claims credit for modernizing the federation and attracting new sponsors, his tenure has failed to yield any major titles. A round of 16 elimination in the most recent edition of the Africa Cup of Nations — months before the team’s World Cup ouster — was its worst performance in that event since 1984. That came after a third-place finish in the previous edition and two consecutive catastrophic qualification campaigns in which Nigeria missed the competition in 2015 and 2017.Despite his initial impulse to resign in March, Pinnick now says he will stay on through the end of his term later this year. Not everyone supports the decision.Days after its World Cup exit, with Pinnick at his lowest, dozens of placard-holding protesters gathered outside the Nigerian headquarters in Abuja, calling for his ouster. Pinnick said the protest was not what it seemed; he suggested the crowd had been assembled — and paid — by opponents who have been trying to stymie his efforts since the day he first stepped into office.“They are professional placard carriers — you employ them, you rent them,” Pinnick said of the group that called for his ouster. “If you ask the guy why they are carrying the placards, they say they don’t know. They rent them for as low as 10 cents, 20 cents. People are hungry.”A few days later, there was another demonstration, more placards. This time the messages were different. They called on Pinnick to stay on. More

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      in Golf

      Golf Shoes Are Getting a Makeover Thanks to Streetwear and Sneaker Culture

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      If you’ve seen golf shoes on the street, it is because one of the world’s most conservative sports has been getting a fresh look on the course.Streetwear — long the provenance of New York hip-hop and California surf culture — has been making its way to the green grass of golf courses.“Golf has started to get cooler, and it’s become less standoffish because there are parts of the sneaker community that have embraced it,” said Jacques Slade, a sneaker YouTuber and golfer who has been vocal about the need for more golf shoes that reflect sneaker culture.Hip-hop culture and sneakers have always had a close relationship, but the tie between hip-hop and golf might not be too far of a stretch, said Ankur Amin, an owner of the New York streetwear boutique Extra Butter. He said golf’s aspirational appeal has helped its style connect with his customers.“So much that we do in street culture is about pursuit of the good life,” he said, “and so much about golf represents that, the same way Moët & Chandon or Louis Vuitton does.”Tiger Woods, a Nike-sponsored golfer, brought a lot of new fans to the sport in the late 1990s, but dwindling interest in his products during the 2010s paved the way for a streetwear crossover into golf. Nike and a subsidiary, Jordan Brand, began releasing collectible silhouettes as golf shoes, such as the Air Max 1 and the original Air Jordans.Sneakerheads salivated. “You have people that’ve grown up with the Jordan Brand,” said the rapper and golf entrepreneur Macklemore, who has done sneaker collaborations with Jordan. “It makes sense that people are going to go nuts.”Brooks Koepka wore Nike while playing in the 2019 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga. Doug Mills/The New York TimesAnd sneaker culture’s grip on golf has only continued to grow. While the pandemic has devastated a number of institutions, it has also boosted participation in golf, as well as other activities conducive to social distancing like running, hiking and cycling, according to the NPD Group, a market research company.“Once golf courses started opening up again, the business just took off,” said Matt Powell, the vice president of NPD Group and an analyst for the sports business, who said participation was also slightly up before the pandemic.Many people bought golf sets at entry-level prices in 2020, he said, an indication that newcomers were picking up the sport. “Any of the beginners who are buying $400 golf sets are not going to drop $120 on golf shoes,” he said. “They’re going to play in sneakers.”Sneakers have always been an overarching part of the millennial generation’s fashion choices, but now some adults in their late 20s and 30s have the disposable income to play golf — or, at least, to try it. Locations of Top Golf and Five Iron Golf, in some ways the sport’s equivalent to bowling alleys, have also opened across the country, which has made elements of the sport more accessible in urban areas where courses are harder to find.“Golf is a game that’s very traditional, but if you look at millennials and all the generations that are following them, they’re never afraid to do something a little bit different,” said Gentry Humphrey, the former vice president of footwear at Jordan Brand who led the company’s entry into the sport.Gentry Humphrey led Nike into the golf market before he retired from the company last fall.Charley Gallay/Getty ImagesBefore Humphrey retired last fall, he also spent time leading Nike’s golf business. Part of Humphrey’s philosophy has been to transform Nike and Jordan sneakers that collectors covet into shoes that can actually be used on the fairway. “Kids are wanting to go out there,” he said, “and they’d rather go out there in something fresh.”Although producing these golf sneakers may seem as simple as adding high-traction soles, there are also other considerations like waterproofing and modifying the cushioning.“We didn’t want it to just be a basketball shoe that moves to the golf course,” Humphrey said, adding that Nike had developed new shoe technologies like the integrated traction bottom — a rubberized outsole without hard spikes that players could wear all day.Another part of Humphrey’s strategy has been to provide a wider platform to start-up golf brands through product collaborations. For instance, Eastside Golf, a brand started in 2019 by the professional golfers Olajuwon Ajanaku and Earl Cooper, who played together at Morehouse College in Atlanta, aims to increase diversity in the sport and introduce younger to it.Earl Cooper, left, and Olajuwon Ajanaku are the founders of Eastside Golf apparel.Julio Cortez/Associated Press“Who said you can’t play golf in a T-shirt?” said Cooper, the first African American all-state golfer in Delaware. “When they created these rules, minorities weren’t even allowed to play. People are trying to hold on to a tradition that was already broken or flawed.”Ajanaku, who designed the trademark for Eastside Golf’s clothing line, which features a Black man in bluejeans wearing a gold chain and baseball cap while swinging a club, said the prominent placement of a person of color on the company’s products was a milestone.“For us to actually have a logo of a Black man playing golf on our clothes speaks to everyone that has not felt welcome in the sport,” he said.Eastside Golf’s logo was shown prominently on the tongue of their Air Jordan collaboration, which used the silhouette of the original Air Jordan IV, a retro sneaker that is highly regarded among sneakerheads. The golf spikes were removable so the sneakers could also be worn off the course.Shoes that are convertible or can transition easily from the green to the clubhouse are one of the key innovations that have helped open up sneaker culture within golf. For fashion-minded individuals, half-inch spikes on the bottom of a sneaker can significantly alter the aesthetic of the shoe. So, brands are increasingly opting for subtle traction on the bottom of their golf shoes instead of straight spikes.“There were so many people buying the golf product collaborations, but didn’t even play the game,” Humphrey said. “My phone was ringing off the hook more for the Eastside Golf collab than for some of the projects we did with Christian Dior. The sport is looking for another shot of energy, and this was a great way to introduce something new to it.”Daniel Berger wearing Adidas during a practice round at the 2022 Masters.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn tour, eagle-eyed golfers or sneaker collectors may have spotted these shoes on the feet of Bubba Watson, 43, or Harold Varner III, 31, but even younger pros are also bringing a different swagger to the PGA Tour, Slade, the sneaker YouTuber, said. A lot of the players on the tour now, he said, “grew up listening to Travis Scott or Tyler the Creator. They’re coming into this world with a totally different perspective.”Last summer, Extra Butter, Amin’s boutique, collaborated with Adidas on a streetwear golf collection inspired by the film “Happy Gilmore” that included golf shoes, sneakers, balls and putter covers. The store is also introducing new golf-based brands to its inventory, like Radda, Whim and Manors Golf.“From the beginning of hip-hop culture, there’s always been this air of wanting to represent what you aspire to,” said Bernie Gross, Extra Butter’s creative director. “We come from backgrounds that don’t represent this, but this is what we hope to achieve one day. Golf is part of that.”Rappers are also getting into the golf business. Drake launched a 10-piece golf collection with Nike that was worn by Brooks Koepka, a four-time major champion. And Macklemore, the Seattle-based rapper, launched his own golf line — dubbed Bogey Boys — in February 2021.Musician Macklemore, wearing a ‘Bogey Boys’ hat and clothing, played in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Monterey Peninsula Country Club last month.Orlando Ramirez/Getty ImagesMacklemore started playing just two and a half years ago while on vacation, and was immediately hooked. But even before he hit his first 5-iron out of the fairway bunker, he was thrifting for classic golf looks from the 1970s. He started his independent golf brand because he saw a market in new players who wanted to bring a unique style to their on-course looks.Since its launch a little over a year ago, Bogey Boys, whose looks are inspired by the swag of golfers like Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino, has sold out of its first collection of limited-edition products, partnered with Nordstrom and opened its first retail location in Seattle in September.Still, beyond collectability, style and functionality, Eastside Golf’s founders believe there are bigger takeaways for the conventionalist sport.“Golf can learn from the sneaker culture,” Cooper said. “Sneaker culture is all about individuality. That’s what golf has been missing.” More

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      in Tennis

      Tennis, Everyone?

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      Furi Sport, a new tennis equipment and fashion line, wants to do nothing less than change the game.The first time Erick Mathelier visited Greenwich, Conn., was an eye-opening experience.“The houses were humongous,” he recalled, sitting outside a Lower East Side cafe one morning in June. “I was like, ‘Wow, people live like this?’” To the eyes of a teenager from the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, Greenwich was a window to a different world, one where the houses weren’t just bigger, the dreams were.His first glimpse of this rarefied enclave on the Long Island Sound came through tennis, in a van on the way to an Ivan Lendl tennis club for a match.Tennis was a gateway for Mr. Mathelier. He recalled his first time on an airplane at age 14 for a trip to a tournament in Bermuda. “It’s funny, I was teased because I was so scared to fly, and by 14 most of my friends had flown,” he said. The sport was his ticket to a scholarship to a Division 1 college, Saint Francis in Brooklyn Heights. Two decades later, Mr. Mathelier, now 42, is a tennis professional — off the court.Last month, he introduced Furi Sport, an equipment — rackets, strings, overgrips and bags — and apparel line with his business partner Michelle Spiro. The idea behind the company is to break down the entry barrier to tennis, to shake off the elitist country-club flavor that insulates the world of Wimbledon and its all-white dress code.Black is the defining color of the Furi Sport T-shirts, hoodies, bags and rackets. At $199, the rackets are priced with inclusivity in mind, competitive with, yet slightly below, the top of the competition (Prince, Head, Wilson, Yonex, Babolat). Mr. Mathelier knows from experience that tennis can take you places, if you can gain access to it.How Others LiveMr. Mathelier grew up in a predominantly Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn, the only son of a single mother from Haiti. He was an active child whose first love was baseball. As a 10-year-old, he was one of two African American kids on a team in Sheepshead Bay.Then, in the summer of 1989, Yusef Hawkins, a Black teenager from East New York, was brutally murdered by a mob of white kids in Bensonhurst. As racial tension surged in the city, Mr. Mathelier’s mother pulled him out of baseball, fearful that Yusef Hawkins’s tragic fate would befall her son.“I was so sad,” Mr. Mathelier said. “I needed something to do.” Deeming himself too short for basketball, he set his sights on tennis. Why? He’s not sure. His mother told him to crack open the Yellow Pages and find a way to play, which led him to the Prospect Park Tennis Center.The tennis club, situated at the nexus of the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Little Caribbean and Crown Heights — which at the time was years away from being gentrified — drew a diverse bunch.“Just seeing how people lived definitely changed my perspective,” Mr. Mathelier said.Mr. Mathelier had no professional tennis ambitions until he met Ms. Spiro by chance at a fashion event in 2014. By then, he had hung up his racket to focus on a series of start-ups.Ms. Spiro, 53, spent 25 years in corporate fashion in increasingly senior buying and sales roles at Macy’s, DKNY, Polo Ralph Lauren Underwear and Calvin Klein Men’s Underwear — companies that were held by public giants like Sara Lee and Warnaco. By 2015, she had become intrigued by the street wear movement.“The luxury market was all about showing how much money you have through what you were buying,” Ms. Spiro said. “What I loved about street wear is that it was this exclusive inclusivity. The currency changed from cash to being in the know.”Mr. Mathelier’s teenage tennis journey resonated with Ms. Spiro, who observed that Supreme, Palace and A Bathing Ape were anchored in skateboarding. Moncler and The North Face grew out of outdoor recreation, and Carhartt and Timberland were backed by construction. Tennis had no street cred.Ms. Spiro called Mr. Mathelier and said, “I have this crazy idea.” How about a rare Black- and female-owned tennis brand, based in New York City and built on the idea of taking the sport out of the country club?The company’s clothing collection speaks to tennis’s off-court culture.via FURI SportThe vibe is more streetwear than country club.via FURI SportTennis for EveryoneHigh-quality, competitive equipment was central to the idea. But there’s a reason the sport is dominated by a handful of big brands. “Everyone is just stuck with what equipment that they’re used to,” said Mr. Mathelier, who was committed to Prince before founding Furi. “Even though they may complain about the newer version of their racket, they just play with it.”Then there’s the fact that what looks like a relatively simple piece of equipment requires navigating a byzantine network of Asian manufacturing cliques. Ms. Spiro and Mr. Mathelier enlisted his childhood friend from Prospect Park Tennis Center, Gerald Sarmiento, a pro-shop owner, coach and master stringer who knows the nuances of rackets better than his own backhand. He told them not to bother unless they came to the market with something that gives the player an “ooh-ahh feeling,” Mr. Mathelier recalled.When it came time to develop a racket, Mr. Sarmiento connected them with Yasu Sakamoto, a Japanese racket maestro with 40 years of experience consulting for companies including Wilson.Through several years of development, frustrating trials and errors, they landed on a proprietary design with energy return technology and vibration reduction technology that gave Mr. Sarmiento that special feeling. Two models, a lite and a pro version, are for sale on the Furi Sport website.The next challenge was recruiting other players. “People would be like, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’” Mr. Mathelier said of pitching Furi’s racket. Once, at the McCarren Park courts in Brooklyn, he approached a friend and her hitting partner.“He looked at me like I was a traveling salesperson with my trunk,” Mr. Mathelier said. “Well, now he plays with Furi.”For every dismissal, there was someone willing to help. A tweet sent to Caitlin Thompson, the publisher of the independent tennis magazine Racquet, led to a meeting. “We became hitting partners because I was really intrigued about the idea of new equipment in the space,” said Ms. Thompson, who has used the Furi rackets, grips and bags.She sees Furi’s opportunity in its positioning as a beginner-friendly option for recreational players, a rare direct-to-consumer brand (think of what Casper did for mattresses) in a market steeped in pro-shop culture.“So much of tennis is catered toward this notion of professional athletes,” Ms. Thompson said. “This is a racket that Roger Federer plays with. This is the racket that Serena Williams plays with.” She said that Mr. Federer’s racket is so heavy, most recreational players can’t lift it above their heads. Yet pro shops can’t keep it in stock because he plays with it.The Social ComponentFor Mr. Mathelier, Furi is a tool to reach kids growing up in circumstances similar to his own. Junior rackets will be coming for fall. Furi is sponsoring three junior tennis players — Carter Smallwood, Olivia Medrano and Bode Vujnovich — and donates grips, strings and rackets to youth programs, including Kings County Tennis League, which began in 2010, when its founder Michael McCasland posted a sign offering free tennis lessons on a dilapidated court near the Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It has since grown into a tennis program for kids living in Brooklyn public housing that serves more than 200 people.“You can use tennis to get out,” Mr. Mathelier said. “It is really good at creating structure, building strategy. A lot of former tennis players end up becoming successful businesspeople.”The lifestyle portion of Furi Sport draws on Ms. Spiro’s expertise. Luis Santos, a designer who has worked for Christian Lacroix, Kenzo and Paco Rabanne, created a collection of clothing that is not performance wear — that’s still in development — but speaks to tennis’s broader, off-court culture. T-shirt dresses, shirts with cutout shoulders and wide-leg, tapered khakis and cargo pants can be worn by anyone heading to a post-match drink. Or anyone who wants to be in Furi’s club.A blue tennis ball with a smirk is Furi Sport’s trademark, “symbolizing the fierce energy and velocity that comes from within,” according to the company’s website. The name Furi was chosen partly because “fury” evokes an attitude of fire-in-the-belly grit essential to a sport in which every match results in one winner and one loser.“You have to be comfortable with losing,” Mr. Mathelier said. “We have a saying internally,” Mr. Mathelier said. “‘Dream big and let it fly.’” He directed attention to his forearm, where those words have been immortalized in a subtle, faded tattoo. More

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      in Tennis

      At Wimbledon, Ashleigh Barty Pays Tribute to a Forebear

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      Barty, the top women’s seed at Wimbledon, asked her apparel sponsor to design an outfit that paid tribute to Evonne Goolagong Cawley, the first Indigenous Australian woman to win the tournament.WIMBLEDON, England — As the top-seeded Ashleigh Barty looked forward to Wimbledon this year, she also looked back half a century. To another Indigenous woman from Australia. To a groundbreaking Wimbledon title. And, ultimately, to a hemline. More

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      in Basket

      Kobe Bryant’s Nike Contract Expired. The Implications Are Complex.

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      The end of the deal has no analogue in basketball or sneaker history, opening a hole in the market as Bryant’s shoes have been used heavily by N.B.A. athletes and have seen high demand among the public since his death.The most popular shoes on the N.B.A. hardwood for the last several seasons were not the signature sneakers endorsed by the top active players, like Nike’s LeBron James or Adidas’s Damian Lillard. They were not the shoes endorsed by the man who practically invented the modern sneaker game, Michael Jordan.Instead they were Nike’s line of Kobe Bryant’s signature sneakers, which were worn by 103 players last season — about 20 percent of the league’s players — according to the sneaker website Baller Shoes DB. Many W.N.B.A. players, like the Seattle Storm’s Jewell Loyd, also wear Bryant’s signature sneakers.But soon those players will need to find new shoes, at least if they want to play in brand-new pairs. Nike confirmed Monday that its contract with the estate of Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash last year, expired last week.“Kobe Bryant was an important part of Nike’s deep connection to consumers,” a Nike spokesman, Josh Benedek, said in a statement. “He pushed us and made everyone around him better. Though our contractual relationship has ended, he remains a deeply loved member of the Nike family.”In the uncertainty over Bryant’s continued endorsement deal for basketball shoes and apparel, a number of issues collide: what professional basketball players wear on the court, the demand from consumers for Bryant merchandise and how a person’s name and image are used, even after their death.Nike has a short window in which it can continue selling the shoes and apparel featuring Bryant that it has already manufactured, but soon that merchandise will disappear from Nike’s website and store shelves.Switching shoe companies is not uncommon for top basketball players, whose sneaker contracts can pay tens of millions of dollars annually and rival or even exceed their N.B.A. contracts in value. Bryant signed with Adidas before he entered the N.B.A., in 1996, then signed with Nike in 2003 after his Adidas deal ended. Even as some major sponsors dropped Bryant when he was accused of sexual assault, Nike, which had signed Bryant shortly before he was arrested, stood by him.The current situation with Bryant’s estate has no analogue in basketball or sneaker history. Signature basketball shoes really only began to gain prominence in the late 1980s, and barely any N.B.A. superstars from that era or later have died, let alone at a young age like Bryant, who was 41.Different versions of Nike shoes were left at a mural honoring Bryant shortly after his death.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesThe closest comparisons are perhaps Chuck Taylor, the namesake of Converse’s famed Chuck Taylor All-Stars, whose shoes remain popular 50 years after his death, or Maya Moore, the W.N.B.A. star and Jordan Brand endorser, who has sat out the past few seasons to focus on social justice. But the strained analogies suggest the past provides little hint of what will happen next.Almost all N.B.A. players are endorsed by one sneaker company or another. But only a handful have lines of shoes named after them, fewer have popular lines that sell tens or hundreds of millions of dollars worth of merchandise annually and even fewer stay popular in retirement. In the 1990s, a handful of W.N.B.A. stars had shoe deals, including Sheryl Swoopes, who was the first female athlete to have a signature basketball sneaker.Nike clearly believed that Bryant’s appeal extended into retirement, signing him to a new five-year agreement on the day of his final N.B.A. game: April 13, 2016. Bryant played his final season in the Kobe 11s, the 11th edition of his sneaker line. After his retirement, Nike released a new line of sneakers styled as Kobe A.D., or anno Domini, the Latin phrase that means “in the year of the Lord.”Nike’s Jordan brand, and its continued release of Air Jordan sneakers, remains quite popular, but as everyday fashion shoes; N.B.A. players rarely wear Air Jordans during games these days. Bryant attempted to buck that trend in retirement, with Nike releasing Bryant “protro” shoes: retro Bryant shoes updated with modern professional performance features.While they were popular with basketball players, Bryant’s sneakers were not always the most popular off the court, worn with jeans or sweats.Before Bryant’s death, the market for his shoes was fairly niche, said Chad Jones, the co-founder of Another Lane, a marketplace for sneaker collectors. “Performance wise, a lot of performance athletes loved Kobe shoes, but fashion wise is really the predictor for how well it will sell to the masses,” Jones said.Nike did not sign Bryant to what is effectively a lifetime contract, like it has done with Jordan and James, raising questions about how much continued value it saw in his name. The Kobe shoes N.B.A. players wore were often limited editions or unique colors that average consumers could not buy, partly explaining why their popularity on the court did not necessarily translate to popularity on the street.Since Bryant’s death, Nike has released new Bryant merchandise, but mostly in limited quantities through its SNKRS app. The shoes have sold out almost immediately, and then showed up for much higher prices on resale markets, leading to accusations that Nike was allowing resellers to profit from Bryant’s death.“When people don’t get them on retail, but on a resale platform for five times or two times the price, they are upset,” Jones said.In a statement posted to Instagram on Monday night, Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s widow, wrote that she was “hoping to forge a lifelong partnership with Nike that reflects my husband’s legacy,” and hinted that she will find a way to continue to sell Bryant’s products, perhaps in greater quantities.Vanessa Bryant during the memorial for her husband, Kobe Bryant, and their daughter Gianna Bryant last February.Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“My hope will always be to allow Kobe’s fans to get and wear his products,” she wrote. “Kobe’s products sell out in seconds. That says everything.”If Vanessa Bryant cannot come to an agreement with Nike on a new contract, building a new brand around Kobe could be a challenge. Nike, including brands it owns like Jordan Brand and Converse, controls more than half the sneaker market, with companies like Adidas and Puma as distant competitors. Under Armour, which is endorsed by Golden State’s Stephen Curry, has struggled to break through.Many sneakers are promoted through elaborate back stories about how the player inspired specific design details or guided the design process, and through player-focused advertising campaigns.But what really sells sneakers is players’ connection to culture, or the feelings they evoke in potential consumers, not necessarily winning N.B.A. championships or a shoe’s performance features. Allen Iverson’s rebellious, me-against-the-world persona made his “Answer” shoes from Reebok popular sellers in the 2000s, even though he never won an N.B.A. title.Bryant was not always a popular player, and his early shoes were not top sellers. Through repeated trips to China and success in the Olympics he found fame outside of America’s borders, and as he aged a generation of players entered an N.B.A. that revered him.If the year since his death has shown anything, it is that even into retirement Bryant’s popularity was growing as he made new connections in Hollywood, opened a sports academy and became a prominent and vocal supporter of women’s basketball. More

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      in Soccer

      Soccer Samples Streetwear and Likes the Fit

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      Juventus reimagined its look, P.S.G. partnered with Jordan Brand, and now Arsenal and Inter Milan are following suit. But soccer’s interest in design has little to do with the sport.The lights at the Allianz Stadium cut out, and the music swelled. In the darkness, a small patch in the middle of the field seemed to glow. The center circle started to pulse and ripple. And then the grass itself appeared to get pulled away, as if it were nothing more than a tablecloth. Three words ran around the electronic advertising boards: “History. Passion. Lols.”The extravagant buildup did not seem to match the occasion. Juventus was at home to Genoa that night, a run-of-the-mill Serie A game. It was late October 2019, much too early in the season for the title to be decided or a trophy to be won. What mattered, though, was not what Juventus was playing for, but what the team was playing in.That night, Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates would showcase a special edition jersey, designed in collaboration with its apparel partner, Adidas, and Palace, the maverick British skate and streetwear brand.The design toyed with the history and passion of Juventus, incorporating the team’s traditional bianconero stripes and the disruptive touches that had made Palace a streetwear phenomenon. The team’s logos and the player’s numbers were displayed in an acidic green. Toward the bottom, the stripes started to pixelate.The jersey was greeted as a masterpiece, but Juventus would never wear it again. By the time Ronaldo and his teammates took to the field against Torino a few days later, they were back in their regular uniforms. It did not matter. Later that week, the Palace jersey came online — or, as the streetwear world would put it, dropped.It sold out in 12 hours.Soccer goes popP.S.G. and Jordan Brand released their first collaboration in 2018.Franck Fife/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA couple of years earlier, Juventus had held a lavish reception at the Museum of Science and Technology in Milan. The guest list included players past and present, but also pop-culture fixtures like Giorgio Moroder, the pioneering music producer, and the model and actress Emily Ratajkowski.The party was arranged to herald the dawn of a new era for the club. Its team was in the middle of an unmatched period of success on the field, establishing a run of dominance in Serie A, however, it risked being left behind by its Continental rivals. To remain competitive, it needed to close the revenue gap on clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United, its chairman, Andrea Agnelli said. To do that, he was convinced, Juventus had to become “more pop.”He is not the only executive in European soccer to have that thought. In 2018, fans lined up around the block outside the Parc des Princes to get their hands on the first drop of a collaboration between Paris St.-Germain and Jordan Brand, a subsidiary of its primary apparel partner, Nike. Earlier this year, Arsenal unveiled a collaboration with 424, a streetwear brand based in Los Angeles.As with the audience for Juventus’s collection with Palace, the core market for these collaborations is not the club’s fans. It is not even, necessarily, fans of the sport. The collections are not intended to be worn as soccer products or as declarations of loyalty to a team; the tie-ins are not, as they are often presented, attempts by Europe’s insatiable superclubs to sell more tickets or to pick up more fans.The Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli oversaw a complete rebranding of the club.Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“A lot of the people buying those P.S.G. Jordan shirts will not care about the team’s league position,” said Jordan Wise, a founder of Gaffer magazine and the creative agency False 9. “Many of them may not even like football.” That is precisely their value to clubs: an entirely untapped market, one not subject to the vicissitudes and tribalism that affect soccer fans.“Working with streetwear brands gives the clubs access to a completely different space,” Wise said. “But to do that, they have to think and look different: less like clubs, and more like sportswear brands.”No team has embraced that shift quite like Juventus. In 2016, at Agnelli’s instigation, the club decided to embark on a comprehensive rebrand. Every aspect of the team’s identity would be in play, including, most controversially, its iconic crest, a symbol that had roots stretching back more than a century.“It was more than just a change in the badge,” said Giorgio Ricci, Juventus’s chief financial officer. “It was a new visual identity, one which would enable us to be seen as innovative, one step ahead.”The club put the rebrand idea out to a number of marketing agencies, and eventually selected a pitch from Interbrand, a longstanding partner. Its approach had been risky: After consulting the company’s global network of creatives, Lidi Grimaldi, the managing director of Interbrand’s Milan bureau, decided against presenting the club with a suite of options, spreading their bets in the hopes that one caught the imagination.Instead, she said, Interbrand decided to go in with one design. Though the company had previously helped tweak the Juventus crest, making it a little less ornate, altering the color scheme a touch, this time Interbrand would suggest something more revolutionary. “Something really bold,” she said. Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMarco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThey did not have much time. Because Juventus and Adidas needed to start work on the club’s jerseys for the next season, Interbrand had less than a month to get its ideas together. Rather than something that looked like a soccer crest, it designed a logo that had “more in common with Google or Apple or Nike,” Grimaldi said.There would be no depiction of a charging bull, as there had been on every version of the crest for more than a century. There would not even be a crest, as such: just a sleek and stylized J, a design that would form the centerpiece of and inspiration for an updated visual identity. That was no accident. “The whole strategy was to widen the spectrum of activities without abandoning the club’s core, which is football,” she said.To present the idea to the Juventus board, Interbrand made a short film, one that offered a glimpse into what this bold new future might look like: that stylized J emblazoned on cafes and hotels, adorning events, used in collaborations with cutting-edge fashion brands. The Juventus executives, including Agnelli, were thrilled, Grimaldi said. This was precisely the sort of sea change they had been seeking. The main response, she said, was: “Wow.”The club, of course, knew such a drastic change would not be universally welcomed. When the new logo was revealed, the reaction from fans was — at best — mixed. Juventus felt it had no choice but to ride out the storm.“We needed a new identity that could change the perception of Juventus among different stakeholders,” Ricci said. “One that could enlarge the scope and potential targets of our business. We needed a new identity that was suitable not just for core customers, but for new audiences, something that could be a trigger for creators.”Perhaps the best measure of its success came on Tuesday. After a similarly intensive design period, Inter Milan — Juventus’s fierce domestic rival — presented its own new crest, a simplified version of the badge that has graced the club’s jerseys for decades. Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery.The soccer entertainment complexFew clubs can match Manchester United’s revenue off the field.Oli Scarff/ReutersFor years, Manchester United has been held up as soccer’s gold standard in converting the sport’s unparalleled popularity into cold, hard cash.The partnership model it pioneered, combining 25 official club partners with a jumble of regional partners around the world, might have made it an easy target for satire — all those tractor and noodle endorsements — but it has also turned the club into a financial powerhouse, capable of earning a profit even during the coronavirus pandemic.Increasingly, though, the consumption habits of younger people are making that approach seem outdated. “We’re seeing a move away from the licensing model,” Wise said. “We know that Generation Z and millennials hate being sold to. That means it’s no longer enough to plaster a club’s badge on something and assume fans will buy it out of loyalty.”Instead, he said, partnerships must feel “authentic,” and the content used to promote them must “tell stories.” That authenticity was the logic behind the Juventus rebrand, not only of its crest but of the club’s whole visual persona, from its social media — using a bespoke font — to its branding.“It was about placing soccer in the broader entertainment framework,” Ricci said. “We see our competition not just as clubs, but things like the gaming industry.”For partners, the appeal is obvious. Soccer has a reach that no other aspect of culture can match. Cristiano Ronaldo has more followers on Instagram than anyone else on the planet. Lionel Messi might trail his rival there, but it will be some solace that he is, at least, ahead of Beyoncé.Cristiano Ronaldo is a global brand in his own right, with 273 million followers on Instagram.Marco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLikewise, Juventus has a name recognition that can supercharge a brand like Palace. The difference is that, increasingly, soccer has to give a little, too. It has to accept the principles of what Grimaldi called “strategic design,” the idea that design itself can change consumer behavior and expectations.“The rebrand was not a way of being cooler or more contemporary,” Grimaldi said. “It was a chance to show you understand the verbal and visual codes you have to adopt if you want to be understood in other spaces. To do work with Palace, for example, you have to adopt the design codes of their world.”It is, though, a slow burn. Four years since its rebrand, Juventus is not in a position to pinpoint any immediate financial boost, which has traditionally been the primary motivation and metric for anything any soccer club does. When looking at the club’s books, Ricci said, it is hard to isolate what is a consequence of the rebrand, and what is a result of winning trophies or signing Cristiano Ronaldo.He is, though, “absolutely convinced” that it was worth it. Internally, the new identity gave the club a sense of direction, he said. Externally, the outrage over the new badge subsided fairly quickly: Signing Ronaldo and picking up another handful of Serie A titles meant the club’s traditional fans did not feel alienated.But at the same time, it meant that Juventus had become something more than a team, something more like a sportswear brand, too.It is still occasionally possible to buy one of those original pixelated, acid green, special-edition Palace jerseys in streetwear’s thriving resale market. Prices start at several hundred dollars, far more than even the newest Juventus jersey. And how the team is doing on the field makes not the slightest bit of difference. More