In the sporting goods industry, innovation is the battleground where brands win or lose. Consumers demand more innovative, personalized, and sustainable products, pushing manufacturers to rethink every stage of the product lifecycle.

How can this be achieved? The answer lies in a digital transformation fueled by innovative technologies, including simulation, IoT, and AI-driven analytics. These forces are enhancing product design and manufacturing. And they are fundamentally reshaping how brands connect with their customers and compete in a rapidly evolving market. In this new era, those who embrace intelligence, flexibility, and sustainability will define the future of sports.

At the forefront of this transformation is the need for tools and platforms that enable manufacturers to integrate intelligence, flexibility, and sustainability into their operations. From real-time performance insights delivered by smart-enabled gear to digital twins optimizing product design, sporting goods brands leverage these technologies to remain agile, innovative, and competitive.

The Digital Shift in Sporting Goods Manufacturing

A convergence of forces is reshaping the sporting goods industry. Consumers are no longer satisfied with one-size-fits-all products—they expect equipment tailored to their unique body mechanics and goals. They want data-driven feedback to optimize their performance and demand sustainability in how gear is made and disposed of. Meanwhile, innovation is accelerating, and product cycles are getting shorter. To meet these evolving demands, manufacturers must move faster, smarter, and more collaboratively than ever before.

Digital transformation is enabling this shift. With integrated tools that connect the dots from design and prototyping to production and post-sale insights, companies are gaining the agility and intelligence needed to deliver high-quality, customized products at scale. Success depends on how well cross-functional teams—designers, engineers, data analysts, and marketers—can collaborate on unified digital platforms to create next-generation gear.

See also: How Digital Twins and Real Time Data Accelerates Time to Value

Smart-Enabled Equipment: Merging Physical and Digital

Smart-enabled sports gear is one of the most visible outcomes of this transformation. These products include connected bicycles, smart tennis racquets, wearable motion sensors, and fitness wear. Embedded IoT sensors provide real-time data about the equipment’s use.

For athletes, this means on-demand feedback that helps refine performance and prevent injury. For manufacturers, the value is equally profound: sensor data provides unprecedented visibility into product usage, revealing insights that can inform design improvements, enable predictive maintenance, and even open the door to new service-based revenue models.

Take, for example, a company producing smart cycling gear. Integrating sensors into helmets and bikes can track rider posture, acceleration, and braking patterns. This data improves rider safety and training routines and gives engineers a feedback loop, leading to better designs in future iterations. It’s a win-win that turns physical products into dynamic, data-driven ecosystems.

Simulation and Digital Twins: Revolutionizing Product Design

Designing high-performance sports gear has always involved a balance of art and science. But today, that balance is tilting firmly toward science—thanks to simulation and digital twin technology. A digital twin is a virtual model of a physical product that can simulate its performance under real-world conditions. That allows engineers to explore countless design scenarios before building a single prototype.

Using simulation and digital twins, manufacturers can now simulate stresses on a bicycle frame, the aerodynamics of a ski helmet, or the cushioning effect of a new running shoe sole—all in a digital environment. These insights help teams fine-tune products faster and more accurately while reducing the need for costly physical prototypes.

For example, imagine a manufacturer developing a new lightweight trail-running shoe. By creating a digital twin, they can simulate different sole compositions, test for durability, and model how the shoe will respond to various terrains and gait patterns. The result? A shoe that performs better and gets to market faster with fewer iterations and less waste.

AI-Driven Analytics: Turning Data into Competitive Advantage

Data is the new gold—and AI is the pickaxe. With the vast amount of performance and product usage data generated by smart gear, AI and machine learning are becoming essential tools for making sense of everything. These technologies enable predictive analytics that drive innovation across R&D, quality assurance, supply chain management, and customer engagement.

In R&D, AI can identify which design features correlate with optimal performance, guiding product innovation. In production, predictive maintenance algorithms can reduce downtime and ensure consistent quality. On the consumer side, AI-powered platforms can offer personalized recommendations—such as which type of shoe best suits an individual’s running style or when it’s time to replace their gear.

These insights also enable entirely new business models. Brands can offer subscription services for equipment upgrades, provide usage-based warranties, or launch coaching apps that integrate with smart gear. By turning raw data into actionable intelligence, companies aren’t just improving products; they’re redefining their relationship with the customer.

Staying Competitive: The Role of Integrated Digital Platforms

As digital transformation accelerates, manufacturers need more than just individual tools. They need cohesive, connected platforms that span the full product lifecycle.

There are many solutions on the market. When companies look for help, one differentiator is finding proven solutions backed by a technology partner with consumer product manufacturing expertise. Those are all areas where Siemens can help.

The Siemens Solid Edge suite empowers teams to design, simulate, and optimize products in a unified environment, enabling faster development, tighter collaboration, and smarter decision-making.

Integrated platforms break down traditional silos between departments. Designers can collaborate in real time with engineers. Marketing teams can leverage product data to refine messaging. Supply chain managers can anticipate demand spikes based on usage trends. The result is a more responsive, innovative organization built to thrive in a fast-moving, tech-driven market.

Manufacturers of consumer sporting goods use Siemens Solid Edge to gain access to a suite of tools that streamline the entire product development process. Some of the main features and benefits of using the solution include:

• Advanced 3D CAD for product design
• Integrated simulation and analysis
• Generative design and topology optimization
• Data management and collaboration
• Integration with additive manufacturing and CAM
• Rendering and visualization
• Support for IoT and Digital Twins.

Solid Edge enhances collaboration by unifying design, validation, and production planning in such a single platform and ensures a smoother transition from concept to finished product. That is particularly important in today’s marketplace, where there is a growing complexity of products. For example, Rotor Bike Components found that by leveraging Siemens NX CAD/CAM/CAE software for design and simulation, they realized a 15% faster implementation of design changes and a 15% reduction in routine tasks and time to market.

How does that help? Speed to market is critical in the consumer product space because customer preferences shift rapidly, and being first to the market can secure brand loyalty and competitive advantage. Short product life cycles mean delayed launches risk missing seasonal trends or being outpaced by competitors. Additionally, faster time-to-market allows companies to respond quickly to feedback, iterate designs, and capture revenue opportunities sooner.

Conclusion: A New Era for Sporting Goods

The race to innovate has never been more intense, and the window to lead is rapidly narrowing. As innovative technologies redefine the sporting goods industry, companies that hesitate risk falling behind more agile, digitally empowered competitors. Now is the time to rethink your product development strategies, embrace data-driven insights, and build smarter, more sustainable gear that meets the demands of today’s athletes.

Siemens is ready to help you seize this moment. With solutions like the Solid Edge portfolio, Siemens empowers sporting goods manufacturers to design faster, innovate smarter, and deliver world-class products that will shape the future of sports. The next era of excellence is here. Make sure you’re leading it.

NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft and Meta Platforms led Wall Street higher Thursday after the Big Tech companies reported profits for the start of the year that were even bigger than analysts expected.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6% for an eighth straight gain, its longest winning streak since August. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 83 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.5%.

Microsoft rallied 7.6% after the software giant said strength in its cloud computing and artificial intelligence businesses drove its overall revenue up 13% from a year earlier.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, also topped analysts’ targets for revenue and profit in the latest quarter. It said AI tools helped boost its advertising revenue, and its stock climbed 4.2%.

They’re two of the most influential stocks within the S&P 500 and other indexes because of their massive sizes, and they weren’t alone. CVS Health, Carrier Global and a bevy of other companies also joined the stream of better-than-expected profit reports that have helped steady Wall Street over the last week. The S&P 500 is back to within 9% of its record set earlier this year, after briefly dropping nearly 20% below the mark.

Still, plenty of uncertainty remains about whether President Donald Trump’s trade war will force the economy into a recession. Even though companies have been reporting better profits for the first three months of the year than analysts expected, many CEOs are remaining cautious about the rest of the year.

When tech company Qualcomm and its product brand Snapdragon inked a deal with Manchester United in 2022, CMO Don McGuire never imagined the Snapdragon name would end up plastered on the Premier League team’s kits.

Similarly, when Qualcomm first got involved with Formula 1 the same year, there were no plans to partner with Mercedes, which, despite some difficulties in recent years, is still firmly in the top half of the grid. And a year before that, when the company signed its 15-year naming rights deal for a stadium complex in San Diego in 2021, the facility was primarily expected to host college football games; now, two professional soccer teams call it home, too.

Over the last few years, McGuire and Qualcomm have pivoted to take advantage of opportunities in sports sponsorships as they present themselves, and rolled with the changes. After a little bit of convincing of the rest of the C-suite, sponsorships, McGuire told us, have become Snapdragon’s single biggest driver of brand growth, more than traditional ad spend.

“As we saw relevance with consumers of our technology and we built our brand story, we had to look at our marketing mix, how we build more affinity for the brand, and how we do more storytelling,” he said.

The reverse Hamilton

Qualcomm originally got involved in F1 with the Ferrari team, not Mercedes. At the time of the deal, Qualcomm had a business relationship with Ferrari outside of F1, along with several other auto brands, and McGuire said it made sense to test out an F1 sponsorship with a one-year deal. The fact that both brands’ primary color is red didn’t hurt, either, he added.

The partnership was announced at the start of the 2022 F1 season in February, and by the time the Italian Grand Prix in Monza rolled around in September, some hospitality hiccups involving understaffing and ticket issues had McGuire feeling frustrated about the deal, he said.

At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix toward the end of the season, Qualcomm’s Ferrari paddock passes fell through again, and Mercedes hooked the brand up with access to its paddock instead. That offer “sealed the deal,” McGuire said, and Qualcomm moved from Ferrari to Mercedes—a year before F1 all-star Lewis Hamilton announced he was leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari after more than a decade. (A representative for Ferrari did not return a request for comment.)

For the past few seasons, Qualcomm has had a significant presence with the team, showing up on its cars, race suits, personnel clothing, and social media, as well as partnering with its drivers and activating at races. Last summer, Qualcomm expanded its partnership with Mercedes to include driver Doriane Pin and F1 Academy, the women’s F1 championship. So far, the sponsorship has helped Qualcomm add to its membership community of “Snapdragon Insiders,” show off its tech to F1 fans in person, and meet other business partners like WhatsApp and Marriott, McGuire said.

The two organizations will discuss renewing their deal in 2026, he said, and while Qualcomm is “always evaluating” the sponsorship market to vet its contracts within the context of the rest of the landscape, McGuire said he’s excited for Mercedes’s future on the track and has been pleased with the relationship.

Dragon devil

Qualcomm also experienced something of an unexpected changeup with regard to its Manchester United partnership. McGuire said that about a year into the original deal, the team approached him with the opportunity to become its front-of-shirt sponsor—which would be a huge sponsorship step up for the brand.

“I was like, ‘Wow, I’m flattered, but there’s no effing way I’m gonna be able to get this over the finish line,’” McGuire said. “We’ve never done anything this big…I would love to have the Snapdragon brand on one of the most coveted pieces of sports real estate in the world, but man, I’m thinking [there’s a] 5% chance this is going to happen.”

After some persistence, and about a year spent working on making the case for the deal with the Red Devils, McGuire said he sold the rest of the C-suite on the idea, which he said primarily came down to the deal’s equivalent media value.

“Being the front-of-shirt partner with Manchester United and having 24 home matches a year for the men’s team alone is like getting the equivalent of 24 Super Bowl ads,” McGuire said. “It’s been the biggest move we’ve made to position Snapdragon into the zeitgeist to a broad audience.”

Sure enough, Qualcomm saw more than 5 billion impressions during its first season on Man United’s kits alone, along with the addition of hundreds of thousands of new additions to its Snapdragon Insiders community, according to McGuire. Last year, the two organizations extended their deal until 2029.

“It’s been pretty life-changing for the brand,” he said. “The KPIs have been phenomenal.”

Hometown heroes

Elsewhere in the world of soccer, Qualcomm found itself involved with San Diego FC, which started playing in MLS as the league’s 30th club this season, and San Diego Wave FC, which joined the NWSL in 2022; both teams play at Snapdragon Stadium. To round out its local sponsorship portfolio, Qualcomm is also a partner of the San Diego Padres MLB team.

While Mercedes and Man United largely serve top-of-funnel goals like brand awareness, the local team efforts are more about “lower-level KPIs like mentions across media” and connecting with the San Diego community, McGuire said. In addition to tens of thousands of media mentions, the stadium has earned Snapdragon global broadcast exposure thanks to international matches and tournaments, like the upcoming Concacaf Gold Cup, according to McGuire.

“This area of brand partnerships and this area of community are really two very fertile areas for us that are driving brand growth overall, and that paid off, from an ROI perspective, tremendously,” he said.

Registration is now open for the first Sports Production Innovation Summit, taking place at GRUP MEDIAPRO’s Imagina Centre Audiovisual in Barcelona on 12 June.

The summit will explore cutting-edge advancements in sports production, focusing on the latest innovations in AI-driven production, cloud-based workflows, cost-effective content creation and the future of centralised and remote production.

After an opening panel assessing the state of the European sports production industry, sessions will explore topics including sustainability in sports production, innovation in new and challenger sports, esports’ influence on production, and how AI-driven enhancements are impacting live sports production. Sessions will be in a mixture of English and Spanish – a translation service will be available.

To find out more and to register, visit www.svgeurope.org/sports-production-innovation-summit-2025.

NEW YORK — Microsoft and Meta Platforms led Wall Street higher Thursday after the Big Tech companies reported profits for the start of the year that were even bigger than analysts expected.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6% for an eighth straight gain, its longest winning streak since August. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 83 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.5%.

Microsoft rallied 7.6% after the software giant said strength in its cloud computing and artificial intelligence businesses drove its overall revenue up 13% from a year earlier.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, also topped analysts’ targets for revenue and profit in the latest quarter. It said AI tools helped boost its advertising revenue, and its stock climbed 4.2%.

They’re two of the most influential stocks within the S&P 500 and other indexes because of their massive sizes, and they weren’t alone. CVS Health, Carrier Global and a bevy of other companies also joined the stream of better-than-expected profit reports that have helped steady Wall Street over the last week. The S&P 500 is back to within 9% of its record set earlier this year, after briefly dropping nearly 20% below the mark.

Still, plenty of uncertainty remains about whether President Donald Trump’s trade war will force the economy into a recession. Even though companies have been reporting better profits for the first three months of the year than analysts expected, many CEOs are remaining cautious about the rest of the year.

General Motors cut its forecast for profit in 2025, for example. It said it’s assuming it will feel a hit of $4 billion to $5 billion because of tariffs, and it expects to offset at least 30% of it. GM’s stock slipped 0.4%.

McDonald’s fell 1.9% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, even though its profit was slightly above forecasts. An important measure of performance at its U.S. restaurants had its worst decline since 2020, when COVID shuttered the global economy, and McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said consumers “are grappling with uncertainty.”

McDonald’s joined Chipotle and other restaurant chains that have seen customers get more cautious amid all the unknowns about the economy and inflation that’s still higher than many would like.

The uncertainty has already shown up in surveys of consumers, which say pessimism is shooting higher about where the economy heading. On Thursday, a couple reports about the economy came in mixed, following up on several recent updates that suggested it’s weakening.

The first of the reports said more U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than economists had forecast, setting the stage for a more comprehensive report on the job market arriving today.

But a later update said U.S. manufacturing activity was better last month than economists had feared, though it still contracted again.

The fear on Wall Street is for a possible worst-case scenario called “stagflation,” where the economy stagnates yet inflation remains high. The Federal Reserve has no good tools to fix both such problems at the same time. If the Fed were to try to help one problem by adjusting interest rates, it would likely make the other worse.

Some encouraging news on inflation arrived Wednesday, when a report said that the measure of inflation the Fed likes to use slowed in March.

In the bond market, Treasury yields swiveled following Thursday’s economic reports. The yield on the 10-year Treasury initially fell below 4.13% after the worse-than-expected update on joblessness. But it later trimmed its losses following the better-than-expected report on manufacturing and rallied to 4.21%. That’s up from 4.17% late Wednesday.