A Seismic Week in the Basketball Sneaker Market
Steph Curry's revenge tour ft. Nike, Reebok and Li-Ning; Converse's new NBA star; and Cade Cunningham's graduation to signature athlete status at the Swoosh.
Hi everyone, and 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.
For so many years, the signature basketball sneaker market lacked steam. Countless people, myself included, wrote articles detailing how stagnant sales, a vacuum of creativity when it came to product design and athlete marketing, and a lack of competition had stifled the once prestigious category.
But over the past year, the market for performance basketball sneakers has slowly begun to click back into gear, boosted by a combination of (1) excitement around the growing number of female basketball players with red hot signature shoes on the market (most recently A’ja Wilson and Angel Reese, with Caitlin Clark soon to follow); (2) new entrants (Anta, Skechers, Li-Ning) spicing things up and offering alternative pathways to signature shoe stardom for athletes not signed to mainstream brands; (3) Heritage brands (Reebok, Nike-owned Converse, Adidas) with rich histories in basketball re-entering the signature sneaker category in a big way and disrupting the duopoly enjoyed by Nike and Jordan for so long.
Nothing has evidenced this thesis more than the events of the past seven days, which have generated a seemingly never-ending flurry of news coming out of the category. Stick with me as we recap each one.
1. Steph Is Playing the Field
There was, of course, last Thursday’s shock revelation that Under Armour broke up with Steph Curry, cutting his $100 million Curry Brand loose and wishing him well for the future. I unpacked the full context and backstory to the separation in an article earlier this week.
In the days since it happened, Stephen has been living his best life, enjoying a 49-point game and rocking whatever footwear he damn well pleases (including the Kobe 6s (Nike), Reebok Shaqnosis sneakers, Nike Volt Penny 2s, and Li-Ning and Dwyane Wade’s Way of Wade 1 shoes, all per Nick DePaula) ahead of his three games since this past week). He’s basking in that post-break-up sneaker-free-agent glow-up mood.
I’ve had many fascinating DMs and emails from people on what a potential next step would look like for Curry Brand.
My opinion is that one of the Chinese heavy-hitter sportswear brands could step in to be a partner to Curry. A brand like Anta or Li-Ning could make sense given how much money they have, how much time Curry has spent out in China developing his brand there already every summer, and what both brands have been able to offer the likes of Kyrie Irving (in his post-Nike era) and DWade, respectively, in terms of creative control and commercial incentive.
Some of you said that:
Skechers, given its growing ambitions in basketball, could be a play. (I sincerely hope not);
Puma could move to sign Steph given their ambitions in the category with Tyrese Haliburton, Salehe Bebmury, etc. (Puma is dealing with enough problems as it is right now to justify such an investment.)
Steph should raise capital and build out the necessary infrastructure to run Curry Brand as a standalone entity. (A fun idea, but unlikely. It would be an incredibly complex, labour-intensive and expensive process.);
Others pointed out that Steph’s free agency could present a good opportunity for a brand with little to no presence in basketball to use him as a launchpad to dive headfirst into the category, in the same way that On leveraged the might of Roger Federer’s all-time-great reputation to build out a succesful tennis category, despite Roger being at the very end of his career when he joined the brand. (While this would be fun, I think this is very unlikely.)
The bottom line is, signature sneaker lines are rarely profitable endeavours. And we are in a market where brands are looking after their bottom line (or what’s left of it) at all costs. Those who aren’t are seeing their share price hammered.
The best piece of analysis I saw to this effect was written by Matt Powell, truly the oracle of the sportswear market, from whom I learned my foundational knowledge on the ins and outs of this category (I used to call on him as a valued source far too often when I was a reporter at The Business of Fashion). I suggest reading his thoughts in full, but I’ll leave you with the final paragraphs of his analysis, which echo the thoughts I have set out today and earlier this week:
“What’s next for Curry? Some have speculated he’ll go it alone. Running a shoe brand, particularly one that only generates $100 million is very challenging and unprofitable. I doubt if the brand can ever be of scale.
Could another brand pick up this deal? Maybe, but as indicated above, there is really no profit or significant revenue in NBA endorsement deals. This especially applies to a player near the end of his career. I expect the Chinese brands will be the most likely candidates.
The split of Curry and UA is an important lesson for the industry. Just signing a great player is not a recipe for success. There are many other options for leveraging marketing investments than signing NBA athletes.”
2. The Deal That Caught Everyone Off Guard
Earlier this week, hot on the heels of my recent Substack explaining my view that not every athlete needs a signature sneaker, the Pistons’ Cade Cunningham revealed he was to become Nike’s sixth active NBA player to get a signature sneaker, which will hit the market sometime in 2027.
No further comment.
(Cade seems like a great guy, though, and the announcement with Kevin Durant on Boardroom was very wholesome.)
Elsewhere in the Nike signature sneakersphere, Devin Booker revealed the second iteration of his shoe line, the Nike Book 2, set to launch in January in a Phoenix Suns-inspired colorway.
3. Converse Basketball Is Now a Family Business
And finally, just yesterday, Converse Basketball — whose creative director is NBA champion and all-round fashion guy Shai Gilgeous Alexander — announced his cousin, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, as the latest NBA star to sign an endorsement deal to help make Chucks great again, spreading the brand’s visibility in the performance category.
I love me some sneaker nepotism. If I was the creative director of Converse hoops, I sure would be handing out sneaker deals to my people left, right and center.
Nepotism jokes aside, this is a smart move. Alexander-Walker was central to the go-to-market strategy for the launch of his cousin’s debut Shai 001 signature sneaker earlier this year, and will wear it on court for the remainder of the season. There’s good synergy here too (beyond the fact that they are biologically related): Converse is playing into the fashion-forward precedent set by Shai, and accompanied Nickiel’s announcement with some images of him in the Shai 001 shot in a more stylistic context than your usual athlete endorsement reveal.
We all know that for basketball sneakers to generate meaningful sales, they need to be seen by consumers as shoes that can be worn in a fashion context, rather than as pure performance shoes. It’s this exact aspect that underpinned the wild success of Adidas and Anthony Edwards’ AE 1 sneakers.
Those who have read my previous SportsVerse articles will know that Converse has had a rough past few years, reporting significant double-digit year-on-year sales decreases each quarter.
One popular signature shoe won’t be enough to pull the brand out of that hole, but with one of the NBA’s most beloved young stars — and now his cousin — to market the shoe around, the Shai 001 may just be the beginning of a pathway back to cultural relevance and could provide critical momentum to jumpstart the turnaround plan of Aaron Cain, a 21-year Nike veteran recently installed as Converse’s new CEO.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
See you next time,
DYM
Great issue! My question is which of this week’s big news excites you the most about the future of hoops shoes? I want to be more excited about all of this but I have this overall feeling of…meh.