ISPO Corona Ticker: Columbia & Vibram Support Employees

This ticker on the impact of the pandemic on the world of sport will be continuously updated. In particular, we would like to show actions that encourage and strengthen social interaction in and through the sports community or show athletes support aid projects.

If you know a helpful initiative from the world of sports or an encouraging action of an outdoor brand, please write to content@ispo.com. Then we will gladly write about it here.

The US outdoor brand Columbia Sportswear had to close its brand stores in the USA on 16 March due to the corona crisis. Nevertheless, there is good news for the more than 4,700 employees affected by this: Columbia Sportswear continues to pay its employees in full despite the closures.

In addition, according to media reports, CEO Tim Boyle is waiving a large part of his salary and is cutting it down to 10,000 US dollars for the entire year. For comparison: According to the newspaper "The Oregonian" Boyle earned 3.3 million dollars in 2018.

Like countless other companies, Vibram has been hit hard by the current Corona pandemic. Both the research center and production at the Vibram Tech Center in Guangzhou were closed for almost ten weeks and are now operating at about 80 percent load. The Albizzate production site near Milan is still closed.

In order to send a positive signal to its employees, the company has paid a bonus to its production staff despite the extremely difficult economic situation, which is intended to reward the successes achieved in 2019. At the same time, Vibram wants to send a positive signal to its employees, who are the cornerstone of the company in difficult times.

A further contribution of the family-owned company to combating the pandemic is the voluntary disinfection of all production sites. In addition, Vibram had already decided to close its plants before the relevant government decree in order to provide the best possible protection for its employees.

In response to the demand drop off caused by various government restrictions and mandatory shutdowns, Boardriders is implementing a series of measures, as the company declares in a press release. These measures include pausing a range of business activities and reducing associated costs to match the overall slowdown in commercial activity. In addition, the Company has made the decision to implement pay reductions across its global teams as well as temporary furloughs in certain functions and geographies.

Finally, the company has undergone a coordinated strategy and operations review and has begun to implement a series of initiatives to adapt its business to the new emerging marketplace. These initiatives are changing some internal structures, processes, and ways of working and will result in some role eliminations.

Boardriders CEO David Tanner said: “There is simply nothing worse than telling highly-valued teammates, who are the heart of our brands, that their paychecks are being impacted by things completely out of our control. In light of the magnitude of this crisis, we are working with all of our commercial partners, including our factories, landlords, vendors, customers, and athletes to share the burden of this unexpected disruption to everyone’s business. There is simply no way that our business, or any piece of our ecosystem, can fully absorb all of the financial impact of this event on their own. We all need each other to make it through this incredibly difficult time.”

In a representative survey of 1,000 households in the UK, the market researchers from Sports Marketing Surveys investigated how British people across the country adapt to initial restrictions and engage in sports, whether from home or within the permitted activities.

According to the survey, 46 per cent of respondents were already exercising at home when the corona crisis began. As many as 21 per cent of respondents did not train at home at the beginning of the corona period, but would now like to do so. Extrapolated to the UK population, that would be 11 million additional athletes who would be using products such as weights, treadmills, exercise bikes, rowing machines, yoga mats, personal training programs, online courses and many other equipment and services.

The Canadian lifestyle brand Dish and DUER will support North American retailers financially in this tough time with a revenue share program. Every retailer will receive a promo code to share with their customer base. These customers will receive 10% off the Dish & DUER website and the retailer will receive revenue share based on the usage of the code.