K2 buys Zoot Sports

Triathlon Forum
1

So what would be the outcome?

Jarden Corporation bought K2 and killed it’s niche in mountain sports and cycling by lowering quality and making the brand available to chain stores. Today, 80’s “burton” is now almost a KMart brand. Later they did the same with the bike line first lowering the quality of it’s boutique mountain bike line then totally killing it along with short lived K2 road/tri bike line.

Is the future of Zoot similar to K2?

I was optimist about Zoot sponsored athletes and guessing a maybe some sort of competition between Team Timex vs. zoot triathlon team. I guess it won’t take long for the Jarden Corporation to cut the financials from the team just like they did with the mountain bike division back in the 80s.

Sad thing is, Soft Flex was the inventor or rear shock on mountainbikes and K2 (back then independent company) invested in this and perfected the design.

2

I believe that the outcome will be that anyone other than the people directly involved in this won’t care.

3

… cycling …short lived K2 road/tri bike line…
You could not find K2 bikes before the buyout so was it a big loss?

4

Correction, it was ProFlex and you are right, I grew up next to the factory in RI. They had a steel version of the Scapel rolling around in the 80’s NE cyclocross scene.

5

Correction, it was ProFlex and you are right, I grew up next to the factory in RI. They had a steel version of the Scapel rolling around in the 80’s NE cyclocross scene.

My bad! You are absolutely right!!! ProFlex!

6

maybe they sold it for fun but in general a company is sold due to financial reasons. And if the buyer is a big corporation outside the industry they look one thing. profit. They don’t care if Zoot pioneered the compression technology, or tri shoes. If it doesn’t sell it will stop the line which is normal but worse part is usally this eliminates the future designs and product developments as a pioneer.
You might think K2 and Zoot together can be powerful but k2 is 1% of the company their major brands are:
Ball(R), Bee(R), Bicycle(R), Crawford(R), Diamond(R), Dicon(R), First Alert(R), Forster(R), Hoyle(R), Java Log(R), Kerr(R), Lehigh(R), Leslie-Locke(R), Loew-Cornell(R) and Pine Mountain(R); Consumer Solutions: Bionaire(R), Crock-Pot(R), FoodSaver(R), Harmony(R), Health o meter(R), Holmes(R), Mr. Coffee(R), Oster(R), Patton(R), Rival(R), Seal-a-Meal(R), Sunbeam(R), VillaWare(R) and White Mountain™; and Outdoor Solutions: Abu Garcia(R), Berkley(R), Campingaz(R), Coleman(R), Fenwick(R), Gulp!(R), JT(R), K2(R), Marker(R), Marmot(R), Mitchell(R), Penn(R), Rawlings(R), Shakespeare(R), Sevylor(R), Stearns(R), Stren(R), Trilene(R) and Volkl(R).

As you can see from the list, they are general household brands.

7

I didn’t know about Marmot, they used to have really cool innovative outerwear years ago, makes sense with the copy cat stuff they have now. I hope the best for Zoot, but from direct experience even with the best intentions in in place it is difficult for a small innovative rec sports company to keep their culture intact when there is a acquisition. Especially in the current economic climate.