Louis Vuitton’s takeover of the sporting world continues apace: Subsequent August, shortly after the LVMH-sponsored Summer time Olympic Video games finish in Paris, the Louis Vuitton-sponsored America’s Cup will start in Barcelona.
America’s Cup, the world’s most prestigious crusing yacht competitors, was final sponsored by Louis Vuitton in 2017. Since 1983, the style model had additionally sponsored the Louis Vuitton Cup, a contest that determines who competes in America’s Cup. (There are solely two racing groups in America’s Cup: the defending champions and the challenger who wins the Louis Vuitton Cup.)
After 2017, although, the Italian trend home Prada turned the race’s fundamental sponsor — and the Louis Vuitton Cup became the Prada Cup.
Louis Vuitton didn’t touch upon why it made the choice to return again or, seven years in the past, to go away the aggressive crusing world. In a information launch, Pietro Beccari, the chairman and chief govt of the corporate, referred solely to an “immense sense of satisfaction” in returning to the competitors as title accomplice.
Grant Dalton, the chief govt of America’s Cup, pointed to the endurance of every group: The America’s Cup started in 1851; Louis Vuitton was based in 1854. “It simply feels fully pure that they’re again within the sport,” he mentioned.
Mr. Dalton hopes that reuniting with Louis Vuitton will deliver extra recognition to the area of interest sport, significantly amongst youthful shoppers. “They immediately make it simpler for us to draw extra sponsors,” mentioned Mr. Dalton, who referred to the alliance as a “very, very straightforward marriage.” The Barcelona contest will happen between August and October in 2024.
For Louis Vuitton, the partnership is a part of a a lot wider initiative on this planet of sports activities. Lately the corporate has created trunks to surround the trophies of a number of main sporting occasions, together with the World Cup, the NBA Finals, the Method 1 Grand Prix de Monaco and the Rugby World Cup. As a part of its sponsorship of the America’s Cup and Louis Vuitton Cup, it’ll present trophy trunks, too.
In July, the mum or dad firm LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton introduced its sponsorship take care of the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, which can help quite a lot of particular person athletes, together with the French swimmer Léon Marchand, the gymnast Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos and the fencer Enzo Lefort.
“The partnership will assist promote France all through the world,” Bernard Arnault, the top of the conglomerate, mentioned.
However the group’s affinity for sports activities stretches far past France. Louis Vuitton’s star ambassadors embrace Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish tennis participant who modeled in a males’s formal put on marketing campaign for Louis Vuitton in August, and Eileen Gu, a Chinese language American skier who walked within the model’s 2023 cruise runway present.
Mr. Dalton, a New Zealand sailor who will likely be overseeing the competitors in Barcelona — the Emirates Workforce New Zealand crew is the reigning America’s Cup champion — mentioned that “the cup is the highest of the meals chain in our sport. And Louis Vuitton is on high of the style trade in the identical means. There’s little question about that.”
