The LEGO Sports theme was based on a number of sporting activities that ran from 2000 until 2007. It featured basketball, football (soccer), hockey and Gravity Games extreme sports such as skateboarding or snowboarding. Most Sports theme sets included standard LEGO System elements and minifigures but also featured various new unique pieces to enable various playability functions that were characteristic to this theme and set it apart from other sports-related LEGO sets. The LEGO Group secured a number of licensing contracts which allowed LEGO to sell many of its sets with the official logos of major sports organizations, such as NBA, NHL, NHL Players' Association and Gravity Games as well as sporting good manufacturers like Adidas.
2001 LEGO Sets
2001 marked the global debut of BIONICLE, a story-driven theme that blended mechanical building with rich mythology, becoming one of LEGO’s most successful original lines. LEGO Harry Potter launched alongside The Sorcerer’s Stone film, beginning a long-running partnership with the Wizarding World franchise. Other new releases included Alpha Team and the action-oriented Racers theme. LEGO also introduced Serious Play for business training and Jack Stone for younger builders. Life on Mars was launched and discontinued within the same year, while LEGO expanded its global retail presence with new brand stores in Europe and the U.S.