Alli Sports and Dogfunk join forces

Alli Sports and Dogfunk.com announced a new partnership today that will marry the action sport event and media company with one of the top online action sports retailers.

 

The deal gives Dogfunk exposure and the potential to sell goods to millions of Alli’s action sports viewers, and gives Alli a partner with online retail expertise to make those sales happen.

 

Alli Sports stands for The Alliance of Action Sports. Founded in 2005 and now owned by the NBC Sports Group, Alli’s event and media platform includes more than 40 events across the Dew Tour, Red Bull Signature Series and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championships.

 

Alli broadcasts events on NBC and brings action sports content to over 1.5 million spectators, over 50 million TV viewers, and produces over 140 hours of original programming for NBC networks annually.

 

Dogfunk.com is the action sports arm to Backcountry.com. It started in 2004 as an online retailer that specialized in just snow, but added skateboarding and surfing brands to its portfolio about 18 months ago.

 

We talked to Alli President Wade Martin and Dogfunk CMO Dustin Robertson about the details of the partnership including how they will divide revenue, what it means for brands and how this partnership affects both companies.

 

Why did you decide to partner with an online retailer?

Wade Martin: Alli Sports tried to launch its own online shop (shop.allisports.com) two years ago. In 2010, we purchased standardboardshop.com, and converted it to an Alli branded ecommerce site that included products for not just Alli branded events, but also featured products from brands like Vans, DC, Volcom and more.

 

So how does this change things?

Wade: The premise hasn’t changed. We believe in combining athletes, media and events and converting fans to shoppers. But when we originally launched, we underestimated what it took to be a really good online retailer.

 

That’s why we decided to partner with the best in class. We think Dogfunk is the best in the business in terms of their scalable operation. We were really impressed with their management and what they have done with other brands as well as how big their growth potential is. They obviously will take our online retail experience to a whole new level.

 

Dustin – What does this mean for Dogfunk?

Dustin Robertson

Dustin: We’ve been playing in the action sports retail space since 2004 and one of key components of that space is athletes, teams and events. We have been trying to crack that as an Internet retailer — do we create our own grassroots tour, have own team, or partner with someone?

 

When this opportunity came along, it was the perfect fit. It encompasses a lot of the things we are trying to do as a retailer. It gets us involved with athletes and events, and lets us support the sports we promote — all at a national level.

 

Wade – Did Alli approach Dogfunk?

We did. We had someone put us in touch that thought the partnership would make sense. We talked to a few potential partners at the end of the year, and spoke to Dogfunk in December. We had a deal in principal not long after, but it took a few months to put it all together.

 

It made a lot of sense. Even though we reconfigured the Dew Tour to feature three big stops (a beach, city and mountain stop), we also added the Red Bull Signature series this year, so we have more events than ever for 2012.

 

Dogfunk.com already had over 500,000 active users and 17 million visits a year, so now we can use all those millions of people and covert them to shoppers.

 

See Page 2 for more about this new partnership

 

 

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How will it work out aesthetically on each partner’s websites?

Wade: Dogfunk will have prominent placing on our site and at our events and you can get to their site from our site, but we will still have separate urls: www.dogfunk and allisports.com.

 

What is the deal financially? Will you split revenue?

Wade: We are true partners, so will share in the revenue collectively. It’s not a referral business.

 

On the Alli side, how does this change how you work with brands?

Wade: We will be out of the backend of the online retail business. Dogfunk will cut deals as it relates to ecommerce. We will still talk to heads of brands as it relates to events, sponsorship and media and we can bring that all together, but Dogfunk talks about shopping and does the buying. We will bring the marketing and media platform to drive more people to Dogfunk.

 

How will you market the partnership at Alli events?

Wade: We will be doing some sort of onsite activation with Dogfunk as well as embedding our content on Dogfunk’s site. There are all these ways to create conversion between content and shopping.

 

Does NBC have an existing online shopping element similar to what Alli is doing with Dogfunk?

Wade Martin of Alli Sports

Wade: NBC does have a shopping element. For example, as part of NBC Sports, they own the Golf Channel. The Golf Channel has a great business called GolfNow.com, which is a reservation system for tee times and lessons. That’s a really successful business based on the same premise.

 

All these people are already watching golf on the golf channel and online, so NBC converted that to a product which is reserving tee times and buying lessons. That’s not much different than converting people to buying shoes and hoodies.

 

How does the partnership change things at Dogfunk?

Dustin: We still have to do what we do — have the right product at the right price, and ship it as fast as possible. But the partnership makes brand positioning for us easier. From a marketing standpoint, it is a huge win because it positions the brand right where we want to be which is at the premium events in action sports with premium athletes.

 

See Page 3 for more about the deal

 

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Dogfunk is owned by Backcountry, which is owned by a media company. Is there any conflict?

Dustin: No. Backcountry, who owns us, deals in action sports, specialty outdoor and bike. We have brands in each and our parent company is Liberty Media, which is traded under NASDAQ. We are part of the consumer portion of their portfolio, but we are small compared to a lot of its brands.

 

Dogfunk is potentially going to have a lot more customers. Are you ready with inventory?

Dustin: Yes. We already have a big business. We have been growing about 10% to 15% a year.

 

Alli has a moto heavy event platform. Dogfunk appears to be more focused on snow then skate and surf. Will you increase your moto presence and buy with more moto brands now?

Dustin: Volcom and Fox are big supporters of moto so for the short term, that’s our answer. For the long term, we will have to figure out how to leverage the moto events. Right now, we are most focused on the Red Bull and the Dew Tour events.

 

Does this affect anything with Backcountry.com?

Dustin: Dogfunk is smaller than Backcountry.com. This is just a great opportunity to strengthen our platform we already have, which strengthens our brands overall. With this partnership, we have two strong platforms that connect consumers to activities and athletes. Brands should benefit from that handsomely.

 

We basically took an event platform and shopping platform with large consumer bases and brought them together. That will help any brand in action sports leverage their platform.