Travis Scott, Nike and Adidas. What's Going On?
Nike's most valuable non-athlete collaborator was rocking Adidas in Vegas. Here's what it could mean.
Hi everyone, happy Thanksgiving week 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.
On Saturday night at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, I did a double take as Travis Scott walked past me towards the track to get a look at the action up close ahead of the race. While everyone else was losing their minds and trying to sneak photos of him, I was too busy trying to work out why he was wearing a (very nice-looking) Y-3 jacket. “What’s the problem?”, I hear you ask. Can’t a man wear what he wants to watch Formula 1? Usually, yes.
The issue here is that Travis happens to be one of Nike’s highest-profile and most valued collaborators, a working relationship that began in 2017 and has gone from strength to strength ever since (and one that would no doubt prohibit him from wearing competitor brands). Meanwhile, Y-3 happens to be the fashion-forward partnership between legendary Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas, Nike’s arch rival.
Brands like Nike and Adidas famously don’t appreciate it when even regular people wear shoes or clothing from rival companies on their premises or to their events. So I can only imagine how the good folks at Nike were feeling when they saw pictures of their most important non-athlete collaborator wearing an Adidas jacket for his appearance at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, by far one of the most high-visibility events on the sports culture calendar.
Travis isn’t just any old one-off collaborator to the brand, either. The American rapper and designer’s collaborations turbocharged many of the retro sneaker models — like Air Force Ones, Jordan 1s and Jordan 4s — that underpinned Nike’s astronomic sales growth in the years leading up to and during the pandemic, with many silhouettes fetching eye-watering prices on resale markets. More recently, as the sneaker market has lost steam somewhat, Nike has also leveraged Travis’ sway as part of its push into soccer culture ahead of the World Cup. As recently as April, he hosted a Nike-organised cage soccer tournament at Coachella. Meanwhile, his sneakers are still the hottest things on the market. According to Bloomberg last week, the Travis Scott x Fragment x Air Jordan 1 Low silhouette broke the record for the most sneaker raffle entries ever (4.4 million).
It’s important to contextualise the unparalleled role Travis holds in the Nike ecosystem. And remember, companies like Nike and Adidas make the bulk of their sales from lifestyle products, rather than performance footwear or apparel (though this is of course still an important segment). It means that finding collaborators like Travis — one of the most coveted and followed stars in global music — who have so much sway on the buying habits of young fashion consumers, is like gold dust. In a way, it makes Travis more valuable to Nike — or just as valuable — as some of the brand’s highest profile athletes. It’s also why, were he to switch allegiances to Adidas, it would be regarded as a seismic and highly consequential shift for the entire sportswear category.
Now, mind you, we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. Let’s consider all the possibilities, starting from the most unserious and getting progressively more serious:
It was very, very cold in Vegas last weekend. Maybe Travis just got a bit chilly, and the only store en route from his hotel to the track was an Adidas flagship where he just so happened to pick up the first jacket he saw? Just to stay warm? He would be in breach of the exclusivity clause which is no doubt part of his Nike contract, but it’s easier to say sorry than to ask for permission, especially if you just wanna keep warm. (0/10, no chance in hell, but it’s a fun thought)
By wearing a rare piece from Nike’s arch rivals, he’s doing what athletes do when they’re trying to push for a juicy new contract by flirting with the opps. (actually have no idea, it would be a highly provocative way to go about it, let’s wait and see?)
Travis is now in business with Adidas and intentionally used the Las Vegas Grand Prix moment to tease an upcoming partnership. (7/10 not beyond the realms of possibility, but would still be absolutely wild).
Travis, like a lot of artists/celebrities, is unpredictable. It’s always hard to know his next move. In this case, his move was to wear an Adidas jacket (which he removed when he got onto the track and posed for pictures by the Red Bull car. Nothing more to it. He will get lightly reprimanded by his management and things will continue as normal. (7/10 also likely. For Travis and Nike to break up would be a major, major development, and I fear I don’t have that much writing left in me in 2025.)
To add to the confusion and send the rumour mill further into overdrive, Adidas’ Y-3 account left cryptic comments under not one but two posts from the official Vegas Instagram account, showing Travis arriving in the paddock ahead of the race.
Even still, I can’t seem to get my head around how significant a move this would be, were it to be true. It would mark a seismic power shift between the two sportswear giants. If it isn’t true, and Travis simply was wearing Adidas because he felt like it, that raises its own separate questions about the state of his relationship with the company that has helped turn him into a streetwear and sneaker hitmaker.
There is precedent for defections of this nature in the sneaker industry. Kanye West was once a Nike collaborator before going on to build his Yeezy empire at Adidas… and we all know how that one ended. Edison Chen and his CLOT brand were valuable sneaker collaborators to Nike, too, before switching allegiances to the Three Stripes in 2023. Conversely, Palace shocked the streetwear world when the skate-fashion-hypebeast brand released its first collaboration with Nike last month, after years of partnership with Adidas.
But if Travis was indeed to cross the floor to sign with Adidas, it would be by far the most high profile example of this nature to ever occur.
Yesterday evening, Travis posted a picture of his Jordans, a sign that clearly indicates his continued involvement with the brand in some form. Right now, it’s anyone’s guess.
Time will tell.
That’s all for today, friends. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
See you next time,
DYM
“Me and Trav’ over at Adidas, been havin stripes” - CRUSH by Playboi Carti
Is there a possibility (probably very small) that Travis is a Yohji Yamamoto fan and that could have played into the jacket choice?