On Changed Running Forever. Then It Came for Tennis.
The Swiss brand has brought excitement and fashion appeal to a sport that established competitors have neglected. Plus, news on Leylah Fernandez' mystery tennis sneaker start-up.
Hi friends, and welcome back to SportsVerse. Thanks for tuning in! It’s officially one month since I wrote my first article here and it’s been such a fun journey already.
Today, we’re here to talk about On, and the moves the $2.5 billion Swiss sportswear brand is making in the world of tennis. Some of you will know that tennis is one of my favourite sports, and for years I have despaired at the general lack of interest and investment in the sport from the world’s largest sportswear brands. But On has increasingly bucked that trend, after first setting its sights on the category by chance in 2019.
The rewards of this bet on what has long been considered a stale category in sportswear—increasingly deprioritized by more established brands—are playing out in front of us right now at the Australian Open in the form of quarter-finalists and On ambassadors Ben Shelton and Iga Świątek.
Gaining traction of any kind as a technical sportswear start-up is hard enough: R&D costs—especially for footwear—are prohibitively expensive and building the credibility for consumers and pro athletes to trust your shoes over their old favorites is near impossible, as is convincing retailers to take a chance on your product in their stores. On managed to do all that and more in the already highly saturated running market, transforming a category dominated by industry titans like Nike, New Balance and Asics.
We’re here to examine how, thanks to a combination of luck, help from a certain Swiss dude named Roger Federer and the business pitch of a lifetime, On decided it would take on tennis as the next sport ripe for disruption—and succeeded.
But first, here are three things I’m watching in sports culture this week.
Industry guru Mike Sykes predicts Adidas will announce a shoe deal with WNBA star Satou Sabally, who is both a sneaker free agent and basketball free agent right now. Adidas basketball is on fire, and a move for Sabally would be a statement of intent for its women’s hoops category led by Candace Parker.
Sephora’s Unrivaled Basketball partnership includes tunnel walk sponsorship, with players arriving on the “Sephora Carpet”. It’s the first time a deal like this has included tunnel-specific branding. The refs are also decked out in Sephora-branded gear.
Lewis Hamilton, who random people on the street sometimes tell me I look like, posted the first image of his Ferrari era yesterday. Impeccable tailoring. I hope this is a sign of the level of content and style we can expect from his next chapter.
Also, please don’t forget to refer your friends to SportsVerse for insights and good times they can’t get anywhere else. You can win some prizes while doing it.
How On Disrupted Tennis: A Timeline
2018: Roger Federer, nearing the end of his career, shocked the world by leaving his signature deal with Nike. After seeing Federer training in pairs of On’s running shoes on social media, the brand’s founders—Olivier Bernhard, David Allemann, and Caspar Coppetti—brokered a meeting with him over dinner in Zurich, Switzerland, via mutual friends.
It turned out Federer was obsessed with the brand and its unique shoes—already a local Swiss success story—whose CloudTec midsole technology he found beneficial for his ageing knees. Being able to work with whatever brand he chose after the expiry of his Nike deal, he challenged On to create a tennis shoe he could train and compete in, adapted from the same technology as the brand’s running shoes.
Still a tiny brand in comparison to the giant it is today, On’s founders bravely told him they didn’t have the money to pay him for a traditional endorsement deal, but proposed that Federer could pay them instead.
2019: Federer agreed, joining the fledgling company as a shareholder—with a 3 percent equity stake—and ambassador. He got working on the brand’s first-ever tennis shoe, based on a mould of his own feet.
(Image: On) 2021: On announces the launch of the Roger Pro tennis shoe, which Federer had been testing on-court in a camouflaged version in the months leading up to its release.
2023: On begins building out its roster of pro tennis athletes, signing rising young stars Ben Shelton and Iga Świątek on head-to-toe endorsement deals.
March 2024: The brand releases its first tennis-specific men’s and women’s apparel line, based around collections built for and worn on court by Shelton and Świątek.
A Sport Ready for Disruption
On has injected excitement and credibility into its tennis footwear and apparel collections in a way its rivals have failed to do. Last year, On released a fashion-forward performance tennis collection co-created with legendary Japanese fashion retailer Beams, which worked alongside Federer to create a collection that looks as much like streetwear as it does tennis gear.
On has also been strategic in the way in which it has positioned Federer as a “co-creator” rather than a brand athlete. The brand knew when it signed him that his best tennis days were over, but securing Federer—who also happened to be Swiss—gave On the credibility, awareness and technical insight it needed to enter the sport. Who better to build out a tennis category with than the greatest of all time?
On has since shifted the attention to building out a tight roster of young stars with genuine star power who can market products to the next generation of tennis fans and players. Last year, for example, the brand cast Shelton in a global billboard campaign for its latest Loewe collaboration.
The brand’s all-in investment in tennis comes at a time when many of its sportswear rivals are pulling back on the category, both in terms of the products they are designing and retaining tennis athletes on their roster. The sport was not named by Nike CEO Elliott Hill as one of the five categories it will be focusing investment on for its turnaround over the next few years, and it’s been a long time since Adidas made any exciting moves in tennis either. At each Grand Slam, tennis lovers bemoan the half-hearted “collections” released by Nike and Adidas.
By contrast, On has repeatedly delivered eye-catching assortments of apparel and footwear (see Shelton’s trademark sleeveless T-shirt and shorts combo, in a swirl of yellow, orange and pink, for the Australian Open). It has also built its athlete roster slowly and steadily, rather than going out to try to sign anyone who agrees to wear the brand’s products. That strategy has paid off too and put them to good use: Świątek won five titles in 2024, and Shelton, still only 22, is bidding for his first Grand Slam title down under right now. (Both are through to the quarter-finals at the Australian Open.)
Meanwhile, although newer entrants like Hugo Boss and Uniqlo have the spending power to sign big-name players, they have failed to get everyday consumers and amateur players excited about buying their tennis clothing and shoes. Other legacy players in tennis, and equipment brands like Wilson, Yonex, Babolat, and K-Swiss, really don’t have the cultural understanding or fashion credibility to compete in apparel or excite people with creative campaigns and marketing.
Just in the same way it found success with running, On has done a great job of working with and convincing real-life, organic people of influence—like club coaches and prolific amateur players—that their footwear and clothing for tennis is better than what’s out there in the market. It’s helped spread credibility not just online, but allowing word of the brand to trickle down to actual consumers, who go into stores looking for tennis shoes to use for their sessions on the weekend.
But the biggest sign of credibility as a newcomer brand is an understanding from the pros that your product is the best of the best. Whenever I’ve spoken with players or agents in recent years, there’s only ever one name that comes up in conversations about dream endorsement deals. Just six years on from an audacious pitch to Roger Federer over dinner in Zurich, On has become that brand.
Speaking of Disruptor Brands in Tennis… Meet Aesema Athletic
I first spotted Leylah Fernandez, Canadian world number 29, wearing this mystery pair of sneakers carrying an “ae” logo at the Olympics last summer. I was instantly intrigued. Fernandez had signed an apparel-only deal with Lululemon in 2022, meaning she was free to compete in whatever brand of sneakers she pleased.
Instead of partnering with a big sneaker company, it looks like Fernandez is betting on herself, developing a brand of her own. Sound familiar? Sports stars are increasingly favouring their independence over brand deals that don’t make sense for them. After consulting the Substack universe over the weekend, Jacob Sutton, Liz Bohinc and David Skilling reliably informed me Fernandez’ sneakers are from her upcoming Aesema Athletic brand, and were designed by her father, Jorge.
I uncovered some sparse details on Aesema:
“We are creating a new tennis shoe tailor-made to fit the lifestyle of the new generation of athletes… co-created with some of the world’s top tennis players,” said a note on the brand’s website.
I’m all for athletes exploring how they can create products of their own. Even more so when they are performance products they can actually play in, rather than just making cheap fan merch. It’s the exact leap of faith Federer took when he invested in On, rather than sticking with the easy option of Nike for years to come. I’m excited to see Aesema’s go-to-market phase in the coming year, and I’m curious to know what other players Fernandez can get wearing her shoes. Tennis could do with more disruption.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Until next time!
DYM
For more on topics like this, I’ll be speaking on the Future of Sportswear panel at the Launchmetrics Performance Summit on Feb. 5. It’s online, free, and is set to be a great session! Sign up here.
