From Hype Beast Radio, I'm Jeff Staples and this is the business of hype, a show about creative entrepreneurs, brand builders, innovators, and the realities behind the dreams they've built.

As you guys probably know, the footwear industry is a ridiculous competitive field.

After all, we all have one thing in common.

We have two feet.

And we can only wear one pair of shoes every day.

So the battle to win that valuable real estate is cutthroat.

There's always been three major players in the industry.

Nike, which is the monster in the room, is almost equal to the entire industry added together.

And Adidas is the newly minted boy wonder, but they only recently just eclipsed Skechers, which is the working class hero.

But if you follow the industry, you'll for sure have read about the massive moves that Puma has been making recently.

This year alone, sales have increased by 15% with double-digit growth in all regions and all product categories.

Gross profit margin improves to 48.6%.

And recently, Puma announced re-entry into the basketball category.

They signed four of the top 15 picks in this year's NBA draft, including top

picks DeAndre Aiton and Marvin Bagley III.

And their new president of basketball operations is some dude named Sean Carter.

You might know him better as Jay-Z.

And this recent news is on top of recent

signings with supermodel Carla Delavine, The Weekend, Big Sean, Salina Gomez, and some chick

named Rihanna. And of full disclosure, my team at Staples has worked on some pretty

dope projects with Puma as well. So let's zoom out a

little bit here. How does this all happen? Because you're naive if you think you just pick up a phone

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