Reebok dons US game face
Firm pegs Patriot Place store to build brand, tap women's fitness
For Reebok, it's game time.
The Canton sneaker maker is opening a store today at Patriot Place in Foxborough, featuring the company's largest assortment of merchandise in its latest attempt to position Reebok as a premium brand for sporting goods.
The 5,200-square-foot shop, in the shadows of New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium, will include more than 500 hats, 300 sneakers, and a wide selection of women's fitness gear, sporting equipment, licensed jerseys, and team collectibles. Reebok, the exclusive manufacturer and seller of National Football League licensed merchandise, is one of dozens of retailers and restaurants opening shops in the massive complex being built next to the stadium by the Kraft family, the owners of the Patriots.
After shuttering high-profile stores in West Hollywood and Philadelphia over the past several years, Reebok is trying to sharpen its image in the United States, according to analysts. Earlier this year, the company unveiled a partnership with Dick's Sporting Goods to launch Reebok apparel boutiques inside all of the 340 Dick's stores across the country.
The new Patriot Place store - Reebok's second full-priced US shop - is an opportunity for the brand to showcase its expansive collection of merchandise and tap into the big business of New England's die-hard sports fans. Graphics of Reebok endorsers like Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz are plastered on the exterior walls. The store, opening in time for the Patriots' first preseason game tonight against the Baltimore Ravens, also will include Patriots and Red Sox gear, customized sneakers, and merchandise from opposing football teams as a way to capitalize on traveling fans.
"On game days, this center is going to be wild," said Anderson McNeill, Reebok's head of global retail, who also helped design the Patriots new pro shop.
Although Reebok has about 150 outlet stores nationwide, the Canton brand has struggled for years in the mature US market as it lost focus and diverted its attention to entertainment and lifestyle initiatives, hiring musicians as endorsers and throwing hip-hop parties in a failed bid to lure new customers, according to analysts.
Since Adidas acquired Reebok in 2006, the German sporting goods giant has attempted to focus Reebok on performance, running, and women's fitness. The Patriot Place shop will feature women's merchandise front and center, with a wide selection of fitness tops and bottoms and feminine dressing rooms.
"Separating yourself in today's environment has new challenges," said John Horan, publisher of industry newsletter Sporting Gods Intelligence. "Reebok needs to be a little grander, a little bigger, and a little more exotic to stand out."
In its most recent earnings report this week, Adidas said Reebok's revenue slid 2 percent during the first half of the year. Despite the addition of joint venture sales in Brazil and Argentina, the United States and United Kingdom remained challenging markets for Reebok, according to John Shanley of Susquehanna Financial Group in New York.
"While we believe incremental improvements being made to revitalize the Reebok brand are starting to show some signs of success, we remain concerned about the brand's core business prospects in the near term, specifically in its major core markets of the US, UK, and Japan," Shanley wrote in a report on Tuesday.
The Patriot Place shop will include hard-to-find items, including limited-edition sneakers like $85 black patent leather and purple glitter high-tops, known as "Tokyo" from Reebok's Cities collection, and Reebok's Retrosport collection, a higher-end lifestyle line usually found in boutiques. The collection includes hoodies, tees, and thermals that cost between $48 and $100 and feature premium fabrics, washes, and finishes with throwback logos of current teams, such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Patriots, and logos of defunct teams, such as the Canton Bulldogs, Baltimore Colts, and Brooklyn Americans.
Reebok imported sleek fixtures and lights from China so the store would look like other branded shops worldwide. On game days, the store's four flat-screen televisions will feature the Patriots, along with other sports content and advertising.
Stan Matthews Jr. of Auburn, who visited Patriot Place after watching the team's training camp earlier this week, said he would visit Reebok to check out the football jerseys once it opened, but didn't have any plans to buy anything just yet.
Reebok's McNeill acknowledged current economic pressures have led to reduced consumer spending in recent months, but said he was not overly concerned about the timing of the store's opening.
"It's a big deal whenever we do a store, and it will probably be a rocky couple of weeks here," McNeill said. "But when you get 70,000 fans packing the place, you have to be here. We have a prime location, and traffic should be coming through. We believe in the vision here."
Jenn Abelson can be reached at abelson@globe.com.
