Welcome to episode 219 of Sports Management Podcast.

Today's guest is Joe Foster - the founder of Reebok. At 90 years old, he's sharing the real origin story for the first time. From hand-made spiked shoes to billion-dollar global dominance, this is one of the greatest sports business journeys ever told.

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Time stamps:

00:00 Growing up during World War II 05:45 Winning races with spiked shoes at age 8 08:08 Grandfather invents the first spiked running shoe 17:00 Walking away from the family footwear company 18:49 Building Reebok inside a collapsed brewery 25:15 Creating direct-to-athlete distribution 29:32 Naming Reebok from a dictionary 35:15 First failed attempt entering America 41:08 Runner's World five-star ratings change everything 43:31 Birth of the Reebok aerobics shoe 46:59 Why Joe exited Reebok 57:10 Turning lawsuits into brand advantages 01:05:05 Joe's 3 rules of entrepreneurship 01:09:06 Meeting celebrities & reaching global #1 01:12:19 Why he wrote his book to correct history 01:13:00 Outro

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