Fastest man in the world turned record producer Usain Bolt has filed a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office on August 17 a few days before his birthday.
The now popular ‘To the World’, pose was first done after the sprint star set the world record for the 100m and 200m at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.
As the 36 year old retired track athlete commoditize his lucrative lifestyle brand, Bolt’s mark is currently featured on the door and logo of his restaurant chain Usain Bolt’s Tracks and Records, his high rise building in Half Way tree, Kingston Jamaica.
Interestingly, It seems as if Bolt will be taking his restaurant business to the US as the filing also includes restaurants and sports bars with services like VIP areas, catering and loyalty programs. Additional categories on the filings is for use on sunglasses, clothing jewelry, bags, and sporting goods. He had filed for the trademark 12 years ago at the start of his career but it was abandoned. There was no confirmation of a filing for use on music memorabilia, Bolt’s latest career move or related IP.
His manager Nugent Walker in an exclusive interview with the World Music Views Podcast last June, without revealing the dollar value, said that Bolt has signed a lifetime deal with Puma. Walker, who has been in a management capacity with Bolt since his earlier years stated that Puma is fully on board to support Usain in all aspects of his music career.
“Usain has a lifetime partnership with Puma not predicated on him being an athlete. Usain will always be an athlete but even with the music it’s an expansion of the lifestyle brand…even during the pandemic, Usain was not competing but creating news in various ways. That’s how you transition into lifestyle,” Walker said.
Usain has been with Puma since the early days of his career but once found himself on rocky ground after a disappointing season in Athens.
Jochen Zeitz former chairman of Puma, now CEO of Harley Davidson said in a 2012 conversation at the Hilton Kingston hotel “I remember after the Athens Olympics some people were saying he’s never going to make it… but I was bright enough to sign him and was bright enough not to let him go when he was injured,” according to the Jamaica Observer.
Since then Bolt has reinvented himself and climbed to the top of track and field giving the Puma brand tremendous leverage.
Walker’s strategy is to use all that Bolt is presently to transition into his next set of goals, in particular a career in the music industry.
“Usain has a social imprint of say 50 million people, we are trying to thank these people for the support and transition (even) ten percent of those people for example to music success”.
Over the years Usain has done several international partnerships with Hublot, Virgin, Digicel, Gatorade and many others.
“When you manage a brand like Usain people love the energy” a very calm Walker asserts.
In commenting on the future of the Bolt brand Walker stated, “One minute it could be real estate, next it could be IP. There’s no limit to what we gonna push”.
Bolt’s Puma partnership places him among an elite group of lifestyle athletes with “lifetime partnership deals” including Lebron James, Michael Jordan and Christiana Ronaldo, who all have deals with Nike. Forbes Magazine reported that, “James signed a lifetime deal with Nike at the end of 2015 worth more than $1 billion…His first Nike deal was worth $90 million.”
Listen to the full conversation with Nugent Walker here.
