Wednesday, April 1, 2015

BUSINESS SPECIAL .....................THE BIGGEST BUSINESS COMEBACKS OF THE PAST 20 YEARS (5)

THE BIGGEST BUSINESS COMEBACKS OF THE PAST 20 YEARS (5)

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Pats were a bad team with a stadium in bankruptcy. Here’s how owner Robert Kraft—who purchased the team in 1994 for $172 million—turned them into four-time Super Bowl winners worth an estimated $2.6 billion:
When Kraft bought the Pats, he realized there could be a big payoff if he upgraded the team’s aging home base. The $325 million ­Gillette Stadium opened in 2002, and since then ­every game has sold out.
In 2000, Kraft staked his team’s future on a pair of nobodies: coach Bill Belichick and sixth-round draft pick Tom Brady. In retrospect, it was a stunningly savvy move: They’re now two of the league’s biggest names.
Kraft opened a 1.3 million-square-foot retail and entertainment complex next to the stadium. It operates all year, not just during the season. Now the Pats are the NFL’s second most profitable operation.

Born on French tennis courts in the 1930s, this powerhouse of popped-collar polo shirts had faded by the early 1990s due to general alligator-logo fatigue. To get young people excited about the label, Lacoste stopped licensing its name, no longer sold clothes in outlets like Walmart, and hired a high-fashion creative director to reboot the brand. It also opened well-designed boutiques and targeted women with accessories like handbags. That effort led to newfound fashion-world cred and a massive sales boost.

The 9/11 attacks had a profound economic impact on New York, but by the time One World Trade Center opened in late 2014, the area was once again bustling. More than 400 companies big and small have relocated to lower Manhattan since 2004. Combine that with a boom in tourism, and it’s no wonder luxury brands such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Tiffany & Co., and ­Hermès are flocking to the area.

With foodies now drooling over all manner of cured-pork products, it’s easy to forget that those greasy strips used to just be something you ate with your eggs. Or maybe not even that: In the ’80s, animal-fat phobia ate into sales by as much as 40%. But by the early 2000s, bacon had its sizzle back. Celebrity chefs championed it as the ultimate flavor booster, and the low-carb-diet fad made it actually somehow seem kind of healthy. Bacon mania ensued, showing up everywhere from burger spots (Wendy’s Baconator) to bars (bacon vodka, anyone?). That’s part of the reason pork sales in the food-service industry outpaced all other meats between 2001 and 2013, and sales were up another 11% in 2014, making bacon a $6 billion business.
BY FAST COMPANY STAFF

http://www.fastcompany.com/3042431/meme/the-biggest-business-comebacks-of-the-past-20-years

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