The world of action sports may be bearing witness to its first real-life Avengers scenario, where superheroes of the industry team up to conquer the world of content production and distribution. Today, GoPro and Red Bull announced a multi-year partnership focusing on content production, distribution, cross-promotion and product innovation. Over the course of the agreement, footage from over 1,800 Red Bull events across the globe will be captured exclusively on GoPro cameras. Both brands will share rights to the subsequent footage which will be distributed through GoPro’s channels as well as Red Bull TV, Red Bull.com and the Red Bull Content Pool. Included in the partnership is cross-promotion, which will presumably result in product publicity for each brand’s products on each other’s channels.
“This partnership is very strategic for GoPro,” explains Nicholas Woodman, founder and CEO of GoPro in a press release. “We share the same vision…to inspire the world to live a bigger life. While we’ve worked closely for many years, as official partners we’ll be able to more effectively help one another execute our shared vision and scale our respective businesses. GoPro and Red Bull, as a match, are as good as it gets.”
A big point of interest in the deal is that, as a result of the partnership, Red Bull receives equity stake in GoPro. So far, that’s shaping up to be a positive for GoPro, whose stock rose 5.4-percent following the announcement, after an 82-percent decline over the past year. According to a Reuters article on the subject, Woodman informed CNBC that Red Bull’s stake in the company is under one percent.
Wall Street speculation aside, this partnership is one to watch, literally, in the snow and action sports industries as a whole. It’s unclear if or how this will affect current athletes sponsored by one brand and not the other, such as Tom Wallisch, a GoPro athlete who is also represented by Red Bull rival Monster Energy. At the moment, the product exclusivity seems to remain centered around Red Bull’s international events such as Red Bull Cold Rush or Red Bull Linecatcher.
To read the full press release from GoPro, click here.