Duke Marketing was founded in 1981 in the Isle of Man, an independent British Crown Dependency Island. The company employs 50 people (more at peak periods) and publishes sport and special interest DVDs, with motorsport as the core activity, including official reviews of leading international championships and events, including MotoGP, the World Rally Championship and the Le Mans 24-hours.
The company has strong motorsport ties, particularly with the Isle of Man TT races. Not only is founder Peter Duke’s father Geoff Duke OBE – winner of six TTs and motorcycle World Champion six times – but Duke has produced VHS and DVD reviews of the TT throughout the company’s history.
Having started trading as a mail order company, Duke evolved during the 1990s into a video publisher with extensive distribution, including HMV and Virgin, and a retail presence in 400 Halfords stores.
Photograph of Peter DukeIn 2007, Duke acquired stock and intellectual assets from UK counterpart Green Umbrella Sport & Leisure. This move massively increased Duke’s range of titles, and saw the company move into new areas, including Rugby, Cricket, Golf, Fishing, Steam Railways, Football and more.
As Duke’s distribution network and online presence continues to expand, mail order continues to be important to the company with over 150,000 direct customers.
With over 3000 titles published on Blu-ray, DVD and VHS, and now also available by download, Duke products are sold under licence in over 25 countries, via an extensive network of licensees ranging from leading publishers in Italy, a franchisee in the USA, associations with television companies in France, New Zealand and Australia, and developing distribution projects in some of the major emerging Far East markets.