What Happens if Mbappé Leaves Nike for Adidas?

The sportswear rumour mill is in full swing. Plus, a rough day on the stock market for Nike.

Hi everyone, welcome back to SportsVerse, my twice-weekly newsletter that tells stories you can’t find anywhere else about the intersection of sports, fashion, business, and culture.

There’s a lot to talk about today. Where do we begin?

We begin by discussing Nike’s earnings, of course, which the company reported on Tuesday for its fiscal quarter ending Feb. 28. I won’t spend too much time on it because it’s really much of the same story we’ve become accustomed to seeing of late:

• Nike reported sales of $11.3 billion, which marked a 3 percent decrease from the same period last year.

• Nike-owned Converse continued its freefall, reporting an eye-watering 37 percent decrease in sales year-over-year, the latest of successive quarters of similar results, which will only intensify calls for Nike to offload the struggling legacy sneaker brand. Buyer-of-brands-on-life-support Authentic Brands Group is (unsurprisingly) reported to be interested in an acquisition.

• As we’ve grown accustomed to hearing, the main bright spot for Nike came in its running category, which continues to see double digit growth.

• Finally, Nike forecast a further decline in sales for the current quarter between two and four percent.

Investors seem to be losing hope in the ambitious turnaround plan and optimism put in place by CEO Elliott Hill when he took the top job in October 2024. Tuesday’s earnings sparked a dramatic selloff, with Nike stock down as much as 15 percent on Tuesday, and down 31 percent since the beginning of the year.

CEO Elliott Hill’s Bold Vision For Nike’s Future

Turning around a business of Nike’s size takes time, and much of Hill’s frustration must come from the fact that (1) he is trying to generate sales and excitement during an extremly unstable geopolitical and business environment, both domestically and globally; and (2) that the turnaround plan he is trying to enact seems actually to be the right one, but there is only so much goodwill investors are willing to concede before making their frustrations known.

Now, onto more juicy topics. The sportswear industry rumour mill has been in full swing over the past week.

The main rumour concerns the reports that Real Madrid and France forward Kylian Mbappé is set to leave Nike after being affiliated with the brand for 20 years (in other words, since he was eight). Said reports (initially reported by Le Parisien, from what I can see) claim Mbappé's Nike contract will expire this summer, following the World Cup, and that both Adidas and Under Armour are preparing offers to secure his services thereafter.

Mbappé has been endorsed by Nike since his childhood.

Now, there’s no guarantee this will bear out. Neither Nike, Mbappé, nor any of the alleged interested parties have commented on the matter. It could be true. It could be false. It could also be a bargaining tactic to help inflate a bumper contract renewal for Mbappé to stay at Nike. But if it does happen, there will be many fascinating things to consider, which we can speak about now:

1. There’s no getting around the fact that Mbappé is the jewel in the crown of Nike’s football business. At 27 years old and entering his prime years, he is by far the most commercially relevant football player in world football. Mbappé has played an increasingly important role in Nike marketing, and earlier this year launched his own “player edition” Mercurial boot. Losing him to a direct rival would be hard to take, especially given that a core tenet of Nike’s turnaround strategy is to position its relationship with elite athletes, teams and organisations at the core of its marketing and product efforts. Football is also one of five core sports categories Nike is honing in on as part of its strategy to return to growth.

2. These things happen. Athletes occasionally jump ship from one brand to the next in search of a better deal, just as they would do in securing a transfer to a new team. Just as is the case for sports teams, too, sportswear brands know that no singular athlete or team is bigger than the business (unless your name is Michael Jordan, who quite literally is the business). Often, these types of moves are reported by the media and social media warriors as a major loss for the brand in question, when internally these developments are considered an occupational hazard. Adidas lost its 70-year-long sponsorship of the German national football federation simply because Nike put in a bid they couldn’t justify matching. There’s no doubt it stung the pride of the German brand known for its history in football, but the world kept spinning, no one died, and people moved on. The same will be true if Mbappé does decide to cross the floor.

3. As my summary at the beginning of this newsletter showed, Nike has bigger fish to fry right now (although Mbappé is a very big fish I’m sure they would love to keep frying). Ultimately, keeping him will not be what saves the brand from its current predicament, though it would certainly help in a small way. Like we’ve discussed before on SportsVerse, endorsement deals are rarely the revenue-driving enterprises the outside world believes them to be. While of course athletes like Mbappé help to sell products, their main benefit is for a brand like Nike to be able to associate itself and its appeal with the top tier of sporting excellence.

4. It makes sense that Adidas and Under Armour would be interested in signing Mbappé if he leaves Nike. What brand wouldn’t? Adidas is the football brand, and Mbappé would slot nicely alongside its roster of stars like Jude Bellingham and David Beckham, who straddle the worlds of sporting superstardom, fashion credibility and celebrity status. Meanwhile, Under Armour is nowhere near as credible in football, but has made the sport one of its priorities as it bids to claw back its status in the sportswear industry after a very difficult few years.

Mbappé is a key figurehead in Nike’s football marketing efforts.

In summary, there’s no guarantee at this stage that any of this will bear out. If it does happen, it will be no doubt reported as a massive loss for Nike (which isn't untrue), and people will also link it to other recent “defections” from the Swoosh to the Stripes, like Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard this week. Either way, players and teams switching sides between different sportswear brands is simply how things go — keeping that in mind will be helpful should such a move materialise in this instance. (Case in point: Red Bull Formula 1 team is reportedly joining Adidas, becoming the latest team on the grid to ditch its long-standing relationship with Puma, as the Stripes continues its tactical offensive in Formula 1, which began with Mercedes.)

Anyway, I enjoyed writing this newsletter, if you couldn’t tell. Just as sports media loves to feast on transfer rumours, I’d like to start a tradition of analysing sportswear transfer rumours like this (with the caveat that they have to be at least semi-credible). Maybe I’ll start a column, who knows.

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That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

See you next time,

DYM