The O’Melveny attorney and Co-Chair of the Sports Industry Group address some of the crucial issues that still must be addressed in the wake of the NCAA’s recent decision to allow student-athletes to benefit from the name, image and likeness in 2021.

Jared Robins, president of NoSweat, says the start-up is aiming to raise $1.5 million in Series A funding by the end of 2020. Performance, safety and hygiene are the pillars of the Minneapolis company. NoSweat makes performance headwear liners that you can peel and stick inside your headwear. The company is focusing on R&D and becoming a performance brand tied to its name.

Angelo Ng, who spent more than 18 years working for Levi Strauss in a variety of roles and nearly four years at Nike, has been hired by Wolverine Worldwide as the company’s first-ever Chief Merchant Officer. He is being charged with developing a merchandising growth strategy and innovation roadmap for Wolverine’s dozen brands, which include Merrell, Sperry and Saucony. He has three-year objectives but believes consumers will begin to see some of the changes by Summer 2020. We discuss these topics and more with Ng in this week’s podcast.

Jeff Garabedian, head of global performance running apparel for New Balance, discusses the brand’s third year as the race’s official footwear and apparel sponsor. He also touches on trail running, the use of reflectives in running apparel and the brand’s overall approach to its key race properties, which also include the London Marathon, Nagoya, Japan Women’s Marathon and Shanghai, China Half Marathon.

Monica Eaton-Cardone, the COO and Co-Founder of Chargebacks911 and Chief Information Officer of Global Risk Technologies, discusses security and fraud issues that may face retailers during the Holiday 2019 season, six days shorter than in 2018, and what measures specialty retailers should take to reduce chargeback and fraud losses during their most important selling period of the year.

Ed Schauder, who heads the sports law practice for Phillips Nizer in New York, talks about the far-reaching impact of possible legislation like California’s “Fair Pay to Play” Act on the future of collegiate sports and licensing. He has more than 30 years year experience in the sports and entertainment space, creating programs to protect and market intellectual property and negotiating licensing and corporate sponsorships and endorsement pacts.

Sky Outfitters, started by college student Keaton Hendricks, is selling socks, beanies and scarves. And the three-year old Indiana company, which follows a similar business strategy similar to Bombas, wants to help the nation’s less fortunate in homeless shelters in the process.

Sam Garzon, the founder and CEO of Miami-based UnoZero, says the young company’s name was inspired by all the soccer greats who have worn the number 10 on the pitch. Everyone from Pele and Zidane to Totti.

Mike Cosentino, founder and CEO of Big Peach Running Co., a seven-door run specialty retail chain based in Atlanta, made a bold move in August 2018, purchasing a 33-foot vehicle from a company in Marietta, GA that specializes in food trucks. He architected and fabricated his six-figure purchase himself before getting “Big Peach On Wheels” on the road to serve as a mobile, on-site store at schools, races and corporations across Georgia.

After nearly two decades in the business, Mary Steinebrunner is still in love with the protective footwear industry. And she’s always thinking about what might come next for her company, which shoes workers worldwide in food processing plants, on oil rigs and in the wild for weekend warriors and dairy farmers alike.