Hot on the heels of Kylian Mbappé’s departure from Nike’s ambassador program, the sports giant shared a 5% year-on-year revenue decline for Q1 2027. Upcoming layoffs and a geographical reorganization plan were also announced on Thursday, as shares dropped 6% leaving Nike stock at its lowest since 2013.
In recent years, Nike has lost major athletes Lamine Yamal, Harry Kane, and Ousmane Dembélé to competitor brands, reflecting its waning dominance in the performance sportswear market. “In terms of Mbappé, we’ve had some great moments and he was an important part of Nike football.
We’re proud of what we achieved on and off the pitch, and we wish him much success as he makes the move,” said new CFO Dave Denton on an investor call this week.
The sportswear giant announced the end of their relationship last month, concluding nearly two decades of sponsorship, which began when Mbappé was just nine years old. That same day, On — founded in 2010 as a challenger running brand — declared its entrance into the soccer market, positioning Mbappé as both an ambassador and a guiding light for its product development.
(According to reporting from The Athletic, Mbappé will receive equity as part of the deal with On.)
As of now, On does not sell soccer boots, although Mbappé has already teased a prototype in matches. Retired soccer legend Thierry Henry is the brand’s director of soccer and has been working behind the scenes on the product and go-to-market approach since late 2025.
On will also step into golf in 2027, broadening its horizons further. This is a familiar play: the brand launched its first tennis-inspired sneaker in 2020 with Roger Federer — a former Nike poster boy — later building the category into one of its fastest growing.
Some pundits are heralding the end of Nike’s chokehold on the athlete marketing space, while others predict a turn toward a more varied sector. Nike, while still the largest sports brand in the world, is less comfortable than it once was.
In the last five years, the share price has fallen roughly 75.6%, dropping 48.3% in the last year. Last month, it left the S&P 100, an index measuring the market performance of major large-cap companies in the US, after 18 years.
Insights company Kantar says that in 2026, Zara knocked Nike off the top spot of its global brand-value leaderboard, BrandZ. However, it remains the winning choice for consumers in eight of the 11 markets measured.
The issue is that where Nike could once dominate the market through innovation, athlete endorsements and cultural influence, consumers now have more meaningful alternatives, with propositions from On, Hoka, the Amer Sports portfolio (which includes Arc’teryx and Salomon), Vuori, Alo Yoga, Lululemon, and New Balance, which gave tennis player Coco Gauff her own shoe silhouette. Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, consumer priorities have shifted.
More broadly, the sector at large has been radically upended. “The sportswear reappraisal has entered its second act,” says Anita Balchandani, a senior partner at McKinsey. “In 2024, investors rotated out of the incumbents and into the challengers; by 2026, they had repriced the challengers, too.”
Of course, ambassadors are just one part of the story. For Nike specifically, issues such as revenue decline in China and a drastic step back from wholesale to focus on direct-to-consumer selling in recent years have hurt sales.
“Nike’s recent issues and stock decline in our view are less about losing some high-profile athletes, and more about having products that are innovative and fresh — versus relying on legacy franchises — and having an attractive presentation at both its own stores and at retail partners,” says Cristina Fernández, a senior research analyst at Telsey Advisory Group. “As Nike’s products have struggled to sell, other brands with a new technology, look, or more grassroots approach have taken share across geographic regions.”
Nike told Vogue Business that Hill, who became CEO in 2024, has cleaned up unhealthy inventory, reset the marketplace, and created more space for a new series of Nike performance products and innovation. Nike is also simplifying retail assortments, investing in premium retail experiences, and strengthening its wholesale partnerships.
Nonetheless, the association of Nike with exceptional athletes remains a litmus test for relevance, consumer sentiment, and brand equity — all metrics Hill should be working toward as part of his ongoing brand turnaround.
Is Nike concerned about competitor brands taking its stars? “We like competition and always have. Nike was built to compete,” says Mary Remuzzi, Nike’s VP of corporate communications. “Athletes have more choices, which means every day we have to earn the right to be their choice through epic innovation, incredible products, and an unmatched connection to sport. Competition makes Nike better, and our focus remains where it has always been: serving athletes.”
Playing to win
Part of Hill’s plan so far has been a return to competitive sports marketing, implicitly positioning Nike as the winner’s brand. From the outside looking in, the storytelling has doubled down on a highly competitive mood.
The loud-mouthed cameos from ex-soccer players Zlatan Ibrahimović and Eric Cantona in Nike’s World Cup hero film Rip the Script were indicative of this, chiming with an older, more arrogant vision of Nike seen in the ’90s and the aughts. It also featured Mbappé, Ronaldinho, Francesco Totti, Cristiano Ronaldo, rapper Central Cee, and even Kim Kardashian.
The campaign generated a media impact value (MIV) of $46 million, according to Launchmetrics. Hill reported that by the start of the tournament, Nike had already sold 2.5 times as many kits compared to the same period for World Cup 2022.
“Nike’s brand is at its strongest when it leads with the athlete and lets culture build around them,” says Launchmetrics CMO Alison Bringé. “That’s exactly what worked at the World Cup, where soccer players came first and cultural figures amplified the story.” As Bringé sees it, Nike must give its athletes a sense of ownership, treating them as co-authors of the brand for success.
This messaging shift was necessary. “Nike’s historic advantage has narrowed,” says Ellie Thorpe, director at Kantar’s BrandZ, noting that its point of difference in the US, Germany and Japan has eroded.
“Brands that lose this often maintain demand for a while, because people still know and trust them. The danger comes later, when consumers start seeing competitors as being more innovative, more exciting, or more culturally relevant.” For Thorpe, renewing this proposition of difference doesn’t necessarily mean more athletes, but more compelling athletes stories instead, where the players have influence and creative input — not just a standard sponsorship.
Whether this works will depend on its agility and willingness of brands to adapt to a market that’s completely changed in the past decade.
Courting talent
Some experts argue that Nike will never return to what it once was. “Other brands are being far more aggressive in their marketing and recruitment efforts,” says Neil Saunders, managing director of Globaldata’s retail division.
“On top of that, athletes like the innovation at brands such as On, and have embraced [that] in a way that they didn’t previously. Nike, while still huge, has lost some of its cool factor, which has pushed athletes into the arms of other brands.”
Athletes have become more discerning over their partners. Federer left Nike in 2018 after 24 years with the brand, stepping on board with Uniqlo, and then On, where he inked a partnership comprising a reported 3% stake in the company that would almost triple in value. This was a milestone moment, cementing a shift within the brand-athlete ecosystem. Now, sports stars grow with the brands.
As well as financial return on investment, sports stars want to see their own personal brands develop concurrently. Given that Nike’s portfolio of athletes is so large, this can make it harder for represented athletes to stand out.
“With some stars they want to feel like they are the top pick as opposed to being a part of a roster of elite sports stars,” says Reece Crisp, buying and creative director at concept store LN-CC, which stocks and works with Nike on partnerships. “With the emergence of new brands, they can attract big stars by offering them the keys to the brand.” In essence, disruptor brands give athletes only-child treatment, which is enticing in a crowded market.
“When your roster is that big, a lot of talent starts to feel like a line item rather than a partner,” says Charlie Weir, founder of sports marketing agency We Are Ninety. “The DTC [direct-to-consumer] era made that worse, because the focus moved to the consumer funnel and away from the relationships that built the brand.”
More broadly, Nike needs to address its regional presence to ensure prospective talents across the globe can see potential in partnering. “While Nike remains the world leader in sportswear with a comfortable lead over the second largest player Adidas, it needs to defend scale and profitability in its largest and most mature markets — Europe, China, North America — while scaling in key growth markets — Latin America, India, South East Asia,” says Marguerite Le Rolland, Euromonitor’s head of apparel and footwear.
Noting Nike’s intended focus on running, soccer and basketball, Le Rolland suggests leaning on large upcoming tournaments — such as the next NBA league games or the 2028 Olympics — as launch platforms, investing in a few high-profile athletes and their products while spending less on mega-stars. Alternatively, she suggests, Nike could double down on smaller emerging athletes and niche sports.
College name, image and likeness deals, as well as fast-growing sports — pickleball, paddle, and women’s soccer and basketball — are where fans form loyalties early,” she says, noting that both On and Hoka earned credibility through runners and specialty stores as opposed to star athletes.
Indeed, Nike has form in identifying talent early, having caught Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Cristiano Ronaldo all on the cusp of their come-ups. “At a time where — particularly in soccer — there is more of a focus on academy players than ever before, the key is finding the right talent and getting them on board early,” says Crisp.
Innovation drives prestige
If Nike intends to attract fresh talent by making them integral to a product’s lore, this entails an embrace of totally novel designs for the athletes to put their stamps on. The problem?
Nike, industry insiders agree, has been relying too heavily on retro styles and its legacy since the early 2020s. This perhaps explains Hill’s recent push in the running segment — a more forward-thinking category than the brand’s legacy classics — where new developments have already shown positive improvements.
The company has also been deliberate in unwinding its previous reliance on legacy franchises, such as the Dunk and Air Force 1 shoes. In June, the CEO noted Nike Running as a bright spot, following five consecutive quarters of double-digit growth.
Still, competition remains strong, and this is mirrored in the secondary as well as primary market. “Challenger brands across running and beyond have seen some of the fastest trade growth on our platform in recent years — a clear sign that both athletes and consumers are spreading their attention well beyond the traditional handful of leaders,” says Brendan Dunne, StockX’s senior director for customer community and engagement.
“For Nike, the opportunity is less about recreating the market of the past, and more about competing in this new environment where athletes have more leverage, more options, and greater control over their own brands.”
Misha Sher, an athlete marketing specialist and founder of One of Not Many, agrees: “Being the automatic choice for every great athlete is a different proposition now there are more credible brands to work with.” He argues that Nike can return to its leader status, provided it keeps delivering products athletes want and consumers choose.
Whether Nike can bring back that ‘just do it’ energy will decipher its future and the caliber of athletes in its stable. The stakes are high. “Elite sport performance is one of the few genuinely scarce things left. There is no AI shortcut, no medicine, or aesthetic surgery that can create an elite athlete,” says Edward Campbell, president of marketing agency General Idea. “It will continue to gain in importance.”