Corporate
The Playbook with Sebastien Willefert
Strategic thinking for the sporting goods industry
An operator’s perspective on the industry’s most pressing strategic questions. Sebastien Willefert distills two decades of brand, commercial and marketing leadership across sporting goods, outdoor and lifestyle into digestible, actionable insights. From growth strategy to community leverage, The Playbook translates experience into answers.
The Playbook is an independent column.
The views expressed are the author’s own.
OpinionHow the brand that knew its customer best lost touch
Lululemon built the best sensing instrument in sportswear. Then it closed the studios to chase sales per square foot.
OpinionCollecting data and knowing are not the same thing
Sebastien Willefert’s three-part Playbook column on Nike, Lululemon and On Holding: more data than ever, less knowledge of their customers.
OpinionOn’s plan is ordinary. Its execution must not be.
Revenue growth slowing to high-teens, wholesale expanding, football and golf as loudspeakers, no loyalty program. On’s easy years are over.
OpinionNike may be borrowing the LVMH playbook
Two infrastructure deals and an LVMH board appointment. Nike may be trading athlete endorsement for luxury brand restraint.
OpinionUTMB 2026: the access model and the backlash against it
Formula 1 sells the feeling of access. Paddock passes cost five figures. UTMB gives it free. In the street.
OpinionCan Britain’s lifestyle darlings crack Europe?
Passenger, Finisterre and Bleubird are big at home. The continent never built a shelf for what they sell.
OpinionGarmin CIRQA: The real story might be elsewhere
The same week it launched a subscription-free band, Garmin quietly bought its way into the subscription layer instead.
OpinionEU destruction ban: five moves to make
Large brands are in scope now. Mid-sized brands have until July 2030. The prize is what they do with those four years.
OpinionNike ACG is back again. Can it back up the hype?
A surfwear distribution agency, marketing hype and an open-hole shirt test whether ACG’s story and execution are aligned.
OpinionA seat at the table is not the same as a voice at it
FESI represents 1,800 European manufacturers on EU rules, but most reach it only through national federations, not directly.
OpinionFrance’s fast-fashion law isn’t about fast fashion
France shields Decathlon and Intersport while fining Shein, leaving the recycling system it was meant to fix no closer to solved.
OpinionWhen brands stop sponsoring sport and start building it
The Satisfy x adidas Circle Pit wasn’t just a product launch. It was an argument that brands, not federations, now set the rules for how sport grows.
OpinionWhy sports retail is consolidating and fragmenting at once
Nike reversed its DTC strategy. Gresvig and XXL collapsed. Lululemon, Vuori and Arc’teryx built their own channels. The wholesale model is being rewritten from both ends.
OpinionThe paddock is the new pitch: adidas moves in, Nike watches
The confirmed three-year deal, effective 2027, gives adidas three top-tier F1 teams and sharpens the question of Nike’s continued paddock absence.
OpinionThe brands skipping the World Cup on purpose
Castore and Macron have no shirt at the 2026 World Cup. That is not a gap in their strategy. It is the strategy.
OpinionNostalgia is not a strategy for the European Outdoor Week
The outdoor trade show’s Riva comeback generated real energy, and real questions about whether the industry has truly moved on.
Intelligence, analysis and advice for the global sporting goods industry.
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