MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Just in time for the exciting baseball post-season, big league footwear brand Skechers announces that it’s teaming up with Los Angeles Dodgers all-star ace Clayton Kershaw on a new multi-year partnership. The popular pitcher will appear in global marketing campaigns for Skechers men’s performance and athletic lifestyle footwear set to launch in 2020. Kershaw is also collaborating with the brand on several styles and recently debuted a custom exclusive baseball cleat.
“I’ve spent my entire career here in Los Angeles, so it feels perfect that I’m partnering with Skechers—a Los Angeles original since 1992,” said Clayton Kershaw. “I’ve been working with the design team on several styles, and I am extremely impressed with the performance and comfort offered by Skechers. We have some unexpected and exciting ideas that fans will love.”
“We are fortunate to have Clayton Kershaw, one of the best pitchers in baseball today, wearing Skechers,” added Michael Greenberg, president of Skechers. “Clayton proves that the comfort and performance of Skechers footwear delivers even when you’re at the top of your game. Fans have already seen Skechers on the mound in the middle of the action, and we’ll soon follow with a full marketing campaign supporting our performance and athletic lifestyle men’s collections. Clayton’s energy, talent, and international fanbase make this partnership a home run for Skechers for years to come.”
A left-handed starter, Kershaw has spent his major league career with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Drafted seventh overall in 2006, he quickly progressed through the Dodgers’ farm system and reached the majors in 2008 at only 20 years old, making him the youngest active player in MLB for an entire year. In 2011, he won the pitching Triple Crown and the National League Cy Young Award, becoming the youngest pitcher to accomplish either of these feats since Dwight Gooden in 1985. He has since won two more Cy Young Awards and was named National League Most Valuable Player in 2014. An eight-time All-Star, Kershaw has the lowest career earned run average and walks per innings pitched average among starters in the live-ball era with a minimum of 1,000 innings pitched. He led the MLB in ERA for four consecutive seasons from 2011 to 2014 and recently surpassed the legendary Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax for most wins and strikeouts by a left-handed starter in Dodgers history.
Off the field, Kershaw and his wife, Ellen, seek to serve vulnerable and at-risk children in Los Angeles, Dallas, Zambia and the Dominican Republic through "Kershaw's Challenge," the couple’s charitable organization. Skechers shares their commitment to children and has agreed to sponsor the Kershaw’s Challenge annual PingPong4Purpose charity event held at Dodger Stadium each summer. Kershaw has been honored with the Roberto Clemente Award and the Branch Rickey Award for his humanitarian work.
Skechers has a long history working with athletes to represent its men’s collections. The Company’s extended roster of sports icons includes baseball stars like fellow Los Angeles legend Tommy Lasorda, Pete Rose, Mariano Rivera, Ozzie Smith and David Ortiz, as well as athletes Joe Namath, Ronnie Lott, Karl Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Rick Fox, Wayne Gretzky, and Joe Montana, plus Sugar Ray Leonard, Howie Long and Tony Romo, who currently appear in Skechers campaigns.
The range of men’s performance and athletic lifestyle footwear from Skechers is available at Skechers retail stores, online at skechers.com, as well as in department and specialty retailers around the globe.
About SKECHERS USA, Inc.
Based in Manhattan Beach, California, Skechers (NYSE:SKX) designs, develops and markets a diverse range of lifestyle footwear for men, women and children, as well as performance footwear for men and women. Skechers footwear is available in the United States and over 170 countries and territories worldwide via department and specialty stores, more than 3,170 Skechers Company-owned and third-party-owned retail stores, and the Company’s e-commerce websites. The Company manages its international business through a network of global distributors, joint venture partners in Asia, Israel and Mexico, and wholly-owned subsidiaries in Canada, Japan, India, and throughout Europe and Latin America. For more information, please visit about.skechers.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
About Kershaw’s Challenge
Kershaw’s Challenge began in 2011 with a little girl in Zambia named Hope, a very evident need in her life, and the realization of a platform to do great things. Today, Kershaw’s Challenge seeks to serve vulnerable and at-risk children living in Los Angeles, Dallas, Zambia and the Dominican Republic. Our goal is to partner with organizations that are committed to this as well and work alongside them on specific projects to make life better for children. www.kershawschallenge.com
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, Skechers’ future domestic and international growth, financial results and operations including expected net sales and earnings, its development of new products, future demand for its products, its planned domestic and international expansion, opening of new stores and additional expenditures, and advertising and marketing initiatives. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking language such as “believe,” “anticipate,” “expect,” “estimate,” “intend,” “plan,” “project,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will result,” “could,” “may,” “might,” or any variations of such words with similar meanings. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include international economic, political and market conditions including the challenging consumer retail markets in the United States; sustaining, managing and forecasting costs and proper inventory levels; losing any significant customers; decreased demand by industry retailers and cancellation of order commitments due to the lack of popularity of particular designs and/or categories of products; maintaining brand image and intense competition among sellers of footwear for consumers, especially in the highly competitive performance footwear market; anticipating, identifying, interpreting or forecasting changes in fashion trends, consumer demand for the products and the various market factors described above; sales levels during the spring, back-to-school and holiday selling seasons; and other factors referenced or incorporated by reference in Skechers’ annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, and its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended June 30, 2019. The risks included here are not exhaustive. Skechers operates in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time and the companies cannot predict all such risk factors, nor can the companies assess the impact of all such risk factors on their respective businesses or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. Moreover, reported results should not be considered an indication of future performance.
