Why Nike Signed Its First Ever Pickleball Athlete
Meanwhile, On is making similar moves in padel.
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.
Yesterday, world no.1 pickleball player Anna Leigh Waters announced she was joining Nike, making Swoosh history as the 18-year-old became the brand’s first ever sponsored pickleball athlete.
The news came hot on the heels of Swiss sportswear brand On recently entering padel, signing world no.1 Arturo Coello on a head-to-toe endorsement which will yield the brand’s first padel-specific performance shoes.
Both moves took people by surprise, for several reasons.
Both brands had been ramping up investment in their tennis categories of late. Nike NKE 0.00%↑, after years of de-prioritising tennis in favor of other sports categories with bigger impact on sales, had begun focusing investment around a core group of star players (Sinner, Alcaraz, Osaka, Sabalenka) while consolidating its roster by letting less consequential players join other brands. On ONON 0.00%↑, meanwhile, had been steadily disrupting the tennis category since Roger Federer came on board in 2019, first developing tennis-specific footwear, then apparel, then going out and building an athlete roster with the likes of Ben Shelton, Iga Swiatek, and up-and-comers Flavio Cobolli and Joao Fonseca. More recently, On has signed big ticket cultural ambassadors like Burna Boy to help with its tennis-fashion push in the mainstream. Given that tennis has become such a big focus for both brands heading into 2026, it was a surprise that they both stepped outside of the sport to sign professional ambassadors from other racket games.
Despite the soaring popularity of amateur pickleball and padel over the past three years, major sportswear brands had largely stayed clear of both sports. Until now, Adidas was pretty much the only one of the major (non-specialist) sportswear giants which was involved in the world of padel in a meaningful way. It seemed the others (Nike and On included) were happy giving up that market share to focus on profit driving categories like running, or more marketable sports like tennis.
Amateurs (regular consumers) can wear tennis gear for padel or pickleball anyway. Padel and pickleball aren’t differentiated enough as sports to require meaningfully different clothing or footwear, which up until recently, has made it hard for brands to justify signing athletes, given they will have no new products to promote.
Padel and Pickleball aren’t that cool. Sure, they’re really fun to play. But brands like On and Nike trade on sexy, big-ticket sporting moments. Padel and pickleball don’t come with nearly the same high-octane energy or athlete star power as tennis, or basketball, or soccer. It’s harder for brands to justify investment in less sexy sports as a result, especially when they don’t bring in big sales. It’s why Nike is no longer in golf, or cricket, in the same way it used to be.
Despite these reasons, Nike and On went out and signed world no.1 players in pickleball and padel, respectively, just a few weeks apart, seemingly out of the blue. In On’s case, it will actually be developping padel-specific products with Coello, starting with footwear, in an attempt to be the first major brand to be the go-to for the ever booming padel community in its modern era. For Nike, it appears Waters will be competing in and marketing products from the existing Nike Court and Nike Tennis collections — for now at least.
It’s smart business on both parts. While On’s investment in the years of R&D required to bring new products to market—especially footwear—will be far greater than Nike’s, both of the brand’s moves indicate an acknowledgement that even though padel and pickleball-related sales aren’t going to have too much of an impact on the brands’ bottom lines, the marketing benefits of being associated with both sports come with a lot of upside. Essentially, the popularity of padel and pickle had become far too great to continue ignoring. Adoption and awareness of both sports continue to boom around the globe, in key markets including North America and Europe, as well as in growth markets such as the Middle East.
I don’t expect Nike to all of a sudden be churning out pickleball-specific clothing and footwear, but signing Waters as its global pickleball ambassador so early in her career will give the brand a presence across the sport that could pay dividends down the line, especially if and when awareness of the professional game reaches the mainstream.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
See you next week,
DYM
This feels less like a product bet and more like a permission play.
Nike isn’t saying pickleball is the next tennis—they’re saying it’s now too culturally visible to ignore. Signing Waters gives them narrative ownership early, even if the gear stays tennis-adjacent for years.
The interesting question isn’t whether pickleball is “cool” yet, but whether brands want to help define what cool looks like in a sport that’s still forming its identity.
I love playing pickleball, but it’s the most boring thing to watch. Professional pickleball is sort of silly and I don’t think Nike can seriously legitimize it as a sport at the same level as Tennis or even Padel.