Dunlop Sport
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Sporting goods |
| Founded | 1910 |
| Headquarters | Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England |
| Products | Racquet sports equipment and accessories, Golf equipment |
| Revenue | approx. $650 million |
| Website | www |
Dunlop Sport is a British sporting goods company that specialises in tennis and golf equipment. Dunlop have manufactured sporting equipment since 1910.
In most parts of the world, Dunlop Sports is owned by Sports Direct International. The brand is owned by SRI Sports in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. DNA (Housemarks) Limited, a company jointly owned by Sports Direct and SRI Sports, is the owner of the Dunlop Sports brand in the United States, and Spartan Sports have the rights to the brand in Australia and New Zealand.
Dunlop was established as a company manufacturing goods from rubber in 1889. The company entered the sporting goods market in 1910, when it began to manufacture rubber golf balls at its base in Birmingham. The company introduced the Maxfli golf ball in 1922.
Dunlop extended into tennis ball manufacture in 1924. In 1925, F A Davis was acquired, which had tennis racket manufacturing expertise. Dunlop opened acquisition discussions with Slazenger in 1927, but without success. In 1928 the sports division became a subsidiary of Dunlop Rubber named Dunlop Sports. Headquarters were relocated from Birmingham to Waltham Abbey in Essex.
The Dunlop Masters golf tournament was established in 1946. It was sponsored by Dunlop until 1982, and is now known as the British Masters.
In 1957 Dunlop acquired the golf club manufacturer John Letters of Scotland. In 1959 the Slazenger Group was acquired.
The Dunlop "flying D" logo was introduced in 1960.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Dunlop was slow to adapt to the new materials that tennis rackets were increasingly being made from, believing that wood would remain the dominant material.
In 1983 the John Letters golf club business was sold back to members of the Letters family.
In 1984 the sports businesses were merged to form Dunlop Slazenger.
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Wikipedia