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The company scored a major coup when it outbid West Germany's Adidas for the right to sponsor the U.S. track and field team from 1981 through 1988. Vitale is paying $8.2 million to the team to outfit the American athletes in exchange for the right to proclaim Kappa a team sponsor. Kappa will furnish the team's competitive attire, while Levi Strauss, the U.S. Olympic team's overall clothing sponsor, will provide the track and field athletes with such items as presentation suits to be worn on the victory stand. The arrangement, says Vitale, has already paid dividends in the form of a spate of new licensing contracts. One of the largest so far, from Phenix of Japan, is worth a minimum of $3.5 million to the Italian company.
Next year Vitale will add a women's leisure-wear collection designed by his Dutch-born wife Carolin. Also due in 1984 is a line of athletic shoes created by Giorgetto Giugiaro, an Italian industrial designer whose products range from cigarette lighters to cars. Meanwhile, like a runner intent on the distance left to cover, Vitale is looking ahead to increased business in the U.S. "For me, this is the year zero," he says. "Everything we've done before was nothing. Now we take off."