Nike To Reduce Number Of Sponsored Football Teams?

Mar 6, 2021

by Chris

Some weeks ago, we reported about Nike's changed strategy in football. Now after we could reveal that US Women's club Portland Thorns will become Nike's second 'AAA' team, we asked ourselves if Nike will supply fewer soccer teams in the future.

Since 2020, Nike has not extended the endorsement deals with dozens of their players, including the likes of Sterling, Foden, Neymar, Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic and Neymar. This is certainly part of Nike's new strategy in football.

Nike Has Fundamentally Changed Its Strategy In Football

Feb 19, 2021

Nike's Kit Deals With Football Clubs in 2021

Nike currently sponsors dozens of profiled football clubs, of which nine are on the brand's internal highest level. Nike's current 'Elite Teams' are Atletico, Barcelona, Chelsea, Galatasaray, Inter, Liverpool, PSG, Leipzig and Tottenham.

Nike's club deals all have extremely long duration

However, it seems very unlikely that Nike will reduce its number of top-level teams soon. If we look at the contracts Nike has with its biggest soccer teams, none of them runs out before the mid-2020s.

What is eye-catching is that Nike signed or extended many of the deals ahead of the COVID-19 crisis, which means they are a bit overpriced at current standards.

There is a major difference between Nike's boot and kit deals - in contrast to the boot endorsement deals, deals with football clubs directly generate income for Nike.

The deals seem overpriced after COVID-19

Another difference to the boot endorsement deals is that there are thousands of player boot contracts, of which hundreds expire each year. As seen above, those of its biggest teams do not run put before 2024 at the soonest.

However, the long deals not 100% mean that Nike will make the kits until the end of the contract - AS Roma and Nike terminated their partnership and technical sponsorship agreement in advance. The original deal was signed for 10 years until the 2024-25 season.

Roma Cancels Nike Deal - 20-21 Kits Last to be Made by the Brand

Jul 16, 2020

Nike also sponsors a range of national teams, who all have contracts until at least the mid-2020s.

Nike won't be able to get out of the contracts cheap, if they want

All in all, we do not expect that any Nike soccer deals with its biggest clubs will end soon, but you never know...

Do you think Nike will end any of their contracts with their partnered teams? Would the Swoosh sign those deals again with today's knowledge? Comment below.