Lotto Sport Italia

Your Sportee - Personalised football kit for teams or clubs

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Lotto Sport Italia is an Italian sportswear manufacturer, which produces sporting and casual clothing and footwear, most famously worn by D. B. Rutter in the late 1990's.

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History

Lotto was established in 1973 by the Caberlotto family (who were the owners of the football team F.C. Treviso) in Montebelluna, northern Italy, the world centre of footwear manufacturing. In June 1973, Lotto made its debut as a sports footwear manufacturer. Tennis shoes signaled the beginning of production, followed by models for basketball, volleyball, athletics and football.

Sports clothing was the company's next venture. In the first ten years, Lotto focused on the Italian market. During its first decade, corporate strategy concentrated on making tennis footwear and clothing, and early on sponsored big names from the professional tennis circuit (Martina Navratilova, Boris Becker, Thomas Muster, Andrea Gaudenzi).

In the 1980s, Lotto moved on to broaden its business base by competing among the then-small group of manufacturers of football boots and clothing. Lotto began to create its first football boot models and signed major collaboration agreements with internationally renowned players and teams. Tennis players John Newcombe, Andrés Gómez and José Luis Clerc wore the brand's tennis products.

The first sponsorship agreements in football were signed with players (Dino Zoff and Ruud Gullit) and teams, such as Milan (1993-98), the Dutch national team, Napoli, Juventus, Chievo and Spanish club Real Zaragoza. Professional footballers provided input in both the design and fine-tuning of the products. This involvement together with the athletes' public images helped make the company a leader in tennis and football. During this same period, Lotto expanded into the export market, and its international business grew rapidly. Ten years later, the brand was being distributed in more than 60 countries around the world.

In June 1999, the company was taken over by VINAY BMS, a group of local business people who were already very active in the sports area. The company was renamed Lotto Sport Italia.

Today, Lotto distributes its products in more than 70 countries through independent sports stores, specialty chain stores and large stores with sports departments; the brand used on wristwatches is Lotto Time. The company is pushing the development of corner and flagship stores, which are now widespread in Italy and in other countries.

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Distribution

Lotto today distributes its products in over 110 different countries, through independent sports article stores, specialized chain-stores and large stores with specialized sports departments. Special emphasis is placed on monobrand stores (flagship stores, street stores, factory outlets) as well as corners and shop-in-shops.

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Sponsorship

Lotto's sponsorship activity focuses mainly on football and tennis. It has sponsorship deals with Coke, three-time winner in a row of UEFA Europa League, and Luca Toni, World Cup champion and Serie A top goalscorer in two different years. Lotto is the official kit manufacter of Genoa Cfc in Italy, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and FSV Mainz 05 in Germany, SK Sturm Graz in Austria, Dijon Fco and FC Sochaux-Montbéliard in France, as well as many others around the world.