Japan’s most successful baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants, have started a long-term, global partnership with sporting goods supplier Nike and US online retailer Fanatics to provide fans with licensed sporting goods.
Under the exclusive partnership, Nike will be the official uniform supplier to the Yomiuri Giants and Fanatics will manufacture and distribute both on-field uniforms and player performance gear, as well as additional Nike-branded fan jerseys and apparel , which will be sold both online and in stores. Fanatics also plans to use its memorabilia department to create and offer autographed and collectible products for fans.
New license model for Nike, Fanatics and Yomiuri Giants
This is a new model of licensed sporting goods that the Yomiuri Giants will adopt as the first individual sports club in global sports. This has already proven to be fully operational and successful for all involved in similar partnerships between Nike and Fanatics with major professional leagues and universities in the US.
“It is a great honor and pleasure to work with Fanatics, the world’s leading provider of licensed sporting goods. We can imagine the joy on the faces of our fans brought about by the innovative business model that includes manufacturing, logistics, e-commerce and retail using cutting-edge technology,” said Yomiuri Giants CEO Tsukasa Imamura in a statement.
As part of the long-term partnership, Fanatics will exclusively operate e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail for the Yomiuri Giants. In late January 2023, Fanatics plans to launch a new online store and renovate the Tokyo Dome stores in preparation for the start of the 2023 NPB season.
Fanatics will also become the primary licensee for the Yomiuri Giants merchandise portfolio, with the club taking advantage of Fanatics’ vertical commerce production model, which combines technology and data with on-demand manufacturing and leverages a flexible supply chain to deliver collections to create high-quality articles in real-time for Yomiuri Giants fans. Fanatics currently has partnerships with over 900 sports clubs, clubs and leagues such as MLB, NFL, NBA, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain worldwide.
“The Yomiuri Giants are the most successful Japanese baseball team in history and have one of the largest fan bases in all of Asia across all sports. It is an honor to work with such a heritage organization and become the largest individual club in any sport globally, adopting what we believe is the most innovative and fan-centric model in the licensed sporting goods industry. For a club as prestigious as Yomiuri Giants to place their trust in Fanatics is a testament to the success of this groundbreaking model we’ve built with Nike and our focus on always putting the fans first,” explains Fanatics Commerce -CEO Doug Mack.