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Do Foot Lockers (and the like) sell customized, uber limited edition sneaks? Unless they’ve changed since I sold shoes to them as an intern, they sell A-/B+ grade, mass produced options.
Not exactly the same thing. Thats equivalent of saying the Kia dealer competes with the Bentley dealer.
It doesn't seem likely (looking at his web store or his IG feed) that he carries your run of the mill Navy or Black Chucks that you can buy for $55 a pair or your OG Black and Navy Vans Old Skools that you can buy for $65 a pair or the Sk8-Hi's you can buy for $70 or your white and Navy Nike AF1s that you can get for $85.
There are customs, which he sells/makes. And there are limited editions which he sells (again looking at the pics on his site). Quite common in the sneaker head space.
It doesn't seem likely (looking at his web store or his IG feed) that he carries your run of the mill Navy or Black Chucks that you can buy for $55 a pair or your OG Black and Navy Vans Old Skools that you can buy for $65 a pair or the Sk8-Hi's you can buy for $70 or your white and Navy Nike AF1s that you can get for $85.
There are customs, which he sells/makes. And there are limited editions which he sells (again looking at the pics on his site). Quite common in the sneaker head space.
"Customized, uber limited edition sneaks" read to me as both customized and uber limited edition.
Whatever the case, it does appear from his IG that he sells some of the same very expensive non-customized shoes as Finish Line which he is literally right next door to. Given the profit margin, those are likely the very kinds of shoes they wouldn't want competition on.
"Customized, uber limited edition sneaks" read to me as both customized and uber limited edition.
Whatever the case, it does appear from his IG that he sells some of the same very expensive non-customized shoes as Finish Line which he is literally right next door to. Given the profit margin, those are likely the very kinds of shoes they wouldn't want competition on.
Poor grammar on my part and didn’t want to adjust it for transparency sake…I was delineating the two.
I guess my example focused on Foot Locker (which gets slightly better product than a Marshalls does) wasn’t comprehensive enough
Do Foot Lockers (and the like) sell customized, uber limited edition sneaks? Unless they’ve changed since I sold shoes to them as an intern, they sell A-/B+ grade, mass produced options.
Not exactly the same thing. Thats equivalent of saying the Kia dealer competes with the Bentley dealer.
The more pertinent question is does Foot Locker want to compete with a store that sells customized, limited edition sneaks and does Foot Locker have a contract or sufficient leverage to demand that they not have to compete with that within that mall?
The more pertinent question is does Foot Locker want to compete with a store that sells customized, limited edition sneaks and does Foot Locker have a contract or sufficient leverage to demand that they not have to compete with that within that mall?
Well there are certainly legal agreements the mall and any tenant (especially an anchor tenant; although neither Foot Locker or Finish Line are) would enter. I believe they are called "Exclusive Use" clauses although I am 2 generations removed from being a lawyer so don't quote me there.
Further, to your point, I would guess that a retail store with $8B (Foot Locker) in annual revenue or $1B (Finish Line) would have quite a bit more leverage/clout than this guy does.
I guess the question this raises to me is...if Finish Line (who is right next door to SirCastles') or Foot Locker were granted Exclusive use provisions as part of their lease agreement, how did either allow the other to exist (assuming both have been in the mall longer than this guy) since they are far more direct competitors (volume wise) than he is?
I am not completely disregarding your and ITB's points; it could be as simple as one of the bigger fish cried foul (which is always a fun game in our system; I **** on White Street here in WF for the same reasons). But, I am far from a lawyer, I don't claim to have inside information on the verbiage of the lease agreement or anything of the like.
The timing and the events preceding it, and the fact that most companies hate reputational harm and will go to the mat to protect themselves from it (i.e. if the Mall Operators had an real life, completely non nefarious reason for making this decision) why wouldn't they break the glass on their "we don't talk about tenant license agreements" to simply cut the conversation off (especially in today’s “woke” world)?
I think a reasonable person could see the dots and connect them, reaching a less than ideal conclusion and not be jumping the shark. If FL or FI had Exclusive Use rights in their lease, cool....but where were they in July, August, September, October, November? Did Sir Castles just get too successful and too compete-y and they exercised their rights to cut him off at the knees? The lapse between him showing up and then termination seems "hmmm"....layer in the Black Friday crime stuff/shootings and them then making this move....another 'hmmm' thing (timing wise)
Well there are certainly legal agreements the mall and any tenant (especially an anchor tenant; although neither Foot Locker or Finish Line are) would enter. I believe they are called "Exclusive Use" clauses although I am 2 generations removed from being a lawyer so don't quote me there.
Further, to your point, I would guess that a retail store with $8B (Foot Locker) in annual revenue or $1B (Finish Line) would have quite a bit more leverage/clout than this guy does.
I guess the question this raises to me is...if Finish Line (who is right next door to SirCastles') or Foot Locker were granted Exclusive use provisions as part of their lease agreement, how did either allow the other to exist (assuming both have been in the mall longer than this guy) since they are far more direct competitors (volume wise) than he is?
I am not completely disregarding your and ITB's points; it could be as simple as one of the bigger fish cried foul (which is always a fun game in our system; I **** on White Street here in WF for the same reasons). But, I am far from a lawyer, I don't claim to have inside information on the verbiage of the lease agreement or anything of the like.
The timing and the events preceding it, and the fact that most companies hate reputational harm and will go to the mat to protect themselves from it (i.e. if the Mall Operators had an real life, completely non nefarious reason for making this decision) why wouldn't they break the glass on their "we don't talk about tenant license agreements" to simply cut the conversation off (especially in today’s “woke” world)?
I think a reasonable person could see the dots and connect them, reaching a less than ideal conclusion and not be jumping the shark. If FL or FI had Exclusive Use rights in their lease, cool....but where were they in July, August, September, October, November? Did Sir Castles just get too successful and too compete-y and they exercised their rights to cut him off at the knees? The lapse between him showing up and then termination seems "hmmm"....layer in the Black Friday crime stuff/shootings and them then making this move....another 'hmmm' thing (timing wise)
It will be interesting to find out if Sir Castles is being completely upfront. They seem to imply they were blindsided by this. But were they actually? And how much is Southpoint limited by confidentiality agreements, for example maybe Foot Locker's contract forces them to limit competition, but that provision may also be secret. Let's see if anybody gets sued over this.
It will be interesting to find out if Sir Castles is being completely upfront. They seem to imply they were blindsided by this. But were they actually? And how much is Southpoint limited by confidentiality agreements, for example maybe Foot Locker's contract forces them to limit competition, but that provision may also be secret. Let's see if anybody gets sued over this.
Yes he certainly seems to be implying this caught him off guard. And if we are to give Brookfield the benefit of the doubt (that this was something simply done to limit the number of shoe stores....but Ill ignore Aldo and Cole Haan both being in the mall per the map), then I have no reason to not afford him the same.
And you're probably right on the confidentiality stuff as it pertains to leases. I lived under NDAs for ~10 years in the consulting world, even when the work I was doing was far from super secret/product dev stuff. While a lease isn't the same as an MSA, the streams can cross contextually.
"I'm not a shoe store on you guys' mall directory" even though it looks an awful lot like a shoe store. It looks like shoes are most of his business given the amount displayed, so I don't see how he could make it in that location without them. And there could still be other business reasons the mall terminated the license agreement.
Whatever the case, he's certainly been successful in getting his narrative out there. The other night I overheard some employees at another Durham store talking about how the mall is making him leave since they think he caused all the problems lately and because he's black. And now a city councilman is involved, so maybe his store will get to stay in some form.
Last edited by ITB_OG; 01-11-2022 at 08:23 AM..
Reason: left out a word
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It looks like shoes are most of his business given the amount displayed, so I don't see how he could make it in that location without them. And there could still be other business reasons the mall terminated the license agreement. 
