Recently, a person familiar with the matter said that the US sports apparel giant Nike (Nike) would sell its Hurley, the surfing sportswear brand, but did not give specific information.

Hurley was founded in 1979 by Bob Hurley. It was originally designed and produced as a surfboard, and was once renowned as the world surfers champion Wayne Bartholomew for designing surfboards. In the early 1990s and early twenty-first Century, Hurley and Quiksilver, Billabong, Pacific Sunwear of California and other surfing brands jointly led a trend of surfing and skateboarding.

In 2002, under the background of the flourishing of surfing culture, sportswear giant Nike bought Hurley from founder Bob Hurley to enter the field of surfing clothing.

However, as the trend of surfing culture has gradually faded, the trend of retro fashion and street culture is rising, and the surfing clothing market is becoming more and more depressed.

In 2015, Quiksilver, a youth sports fashion and surfer product manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy protection; in July 2016, the Australian surfing apparel group Billabong sold its skateboard brand Sector 9 to the price of $12 million for private equity Transom Capital Group's investment company Bravo Sports; in February 2017, Billabong sold its high-end bikini brand Tigerlily at a price of 60 million Australian dollars to the Australian private equity fund Crescent Tigerlily.

Therefore, for the industry, it is not unexpected that Nike sells Hurley. Hurley's latest public financial data was in 2012, with net sales of $260 million. Considering the market situation, Hurley's sales in recent years may not increase substantially. Nike's net sales in the last fiscal year were as high as $39 billion, compared with Hurley.

In response to the rumour, Nike official declined to comment.