Can Nike stop the rot?

It’s that time again when English people greet each other in the street with the three word mantra “It’s coming home”. Tomorrow, England face a free-scoring Spain in the final of Euro 2024, Gareth Southgate’s second major final in three years.

Ahead of the match, we have an array of worthwhile offerings, including a profile of Southgate, a data-dive into player workload, and a piece on Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal, the exciting new faces of Spanish football. Plus we look at how Chinese corporate sponsors are set to be big winners, whatever the result.

Meanwhile, we’re examining Nike’s plans to stop the rot at the world’s top sportswear maker. And, on Wimbledon finals weekend, we ask whether money alone can help women’s tennis cut through the noise. Do read on — Josh Noble, sports editor

What Nike is doing to stop its slump

This summer should be a dazzling time for Nike: between the Paris Olympics, Euro 2024 and Copa América, it’s a months-long showcase of the best athletes and a prime window for marketing the latest kits and trainers.

But the world’s largest sportswear maker is in a protracted funk, worsened by Nike’s earnings report released last month which not only missed expectations but forecast shrinking sales for the year ahead. The stock plunged 20 per cent the next day, its worst performance since going public in 1980 and extending a share price decline this year to more than 30 per cent.

What happened? Some of Nike’s issues have been evident for months, including increased competition from newer athletic brands like On and Hoka, which we wrote about in January. But the dismal earnings report revealed that turnaround efforts at the swoosh, which have included hundreds of lay-offs, haven’t done enough, quickly enough, to adjust to a changed marketplace.

Those differences include: a lack of connection by younger consumers to some Nike classics, like Jordan sneakers (much of Gen Z is too young to remember the playing days of MJ), a post-pandemic return to shopping at bricks-and-mortar stores faster than Nike anticipated, and the general growth of sneaker sales among consumers over 35. All of which we detail in our latest FT deep dive on Nike this week.

Nike executives said that some nascent initiatives are showing promise that haven’t yet hit the bottom line, including that orders by retail partners are up “double digits” this autumn, led by a new performance running shoe, the Pegasus41.

Jim Duffy, managing director at Stifel, told Scoreboard that part of Nike’s recent difficulties is due to the fact that other brands, such as Hoka, On, and New Balance, have been more effective at getting consumers to buy performance running shoes (ie those designed for using on your daily jog) as lifestyle sneakers, worn for everyday fashion. 

“For a lot of brands in the active category, the pandemic was an accelerator” of the trend towards casual dress and adopting sporty gear for work and play, he said. “This was not the case for Nike.”

Duffy has been open about calling for “regime change” at management level. John Donahoe, Nike’s CEO since 2020, still has the backing of co-founder and largest shareholder Phil Knight. But Wall Street is watching for a few crucial signs: the results of back-to-school sales, ideally juiced by the Olympics buzz, and executive commentary at an investor day scheduled for November. Like the world’s best athletes, Nike is now on the clock.

Can investment lift the profile of women’s tennis?

Later today on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, a new women’s tennis champion will be crowned. Either Jasmine Paolini of Italy or Czech player Barbora Krejčíková will have their name added to the wall of the All England Club for the first time.

The emergence of a new star might be seen as an exciting moment in most sports. But for women’s tennis, the ever changing cast of winners risks becoming something of a drag. In an increasingly crowded world of sports and entertainment, narrative becomes key. Women’s tennis doesn’t seem to have one that casual fans can easily latch on to.

Marina Storti, chief executive of WTA Ventures, the commercial arm of the women’s tour, hopes that new investment will help cut through the noise. After taking $150mn from private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and signing and multiyear partnership with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, the WTA has money to spend.

Storti, a former Sky executive, says the focus for now is on building brand awareness and raising the profile of both the tour and its players. The goal is to turn the WTA and its stars into “household names”, she said in this recent FT interview.

Social follows for the WTA are up 24 per cent since this time last year, but there is still plenty of catching up to do. Wimbledon has 2.3mn followers on video platform TikTok, the WTA has just over 200k.

The size of the problem is even clearer at the player level. Serena Williams, the most successful women’s player of the open era, has almost 18mn fans on Instagram. The combined total for the current WTA top 10 ranked players is less than half that amount.

Other efforts are under way, including a new video game backed by the WTA and the ATP (although the Slams have put their weight behind a rival). The Netflix series Break Point was another attempt to tell tennis stories to the masses, but it has been dropped after just two seasons.

For now, the WTA looks sure to be an interesting case study for testing how much difference money alone can make in a sport craving more attention.

Highlights

• The rise of the far right in France threatens the capital city’s multicultural make-up — but the Games can be the starting gun for a new ‘Grand Paris’. Simon Kuper pens this weekend essay for Life & Arts.

• The French football league been holding last-ditch talks with broadcasters over a potential TV deal less than six weeks ahead of the new season.

• Financier Amanda Staveley and her husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi are set to leave Newcastle United, where the couple have been directors and shareholders since the Saudi-led buyout in 2021.

• Manchester United’s quarterly losses soared due to costs from the sale of a major stake in the top-flight English football club to chemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Final Whistle

There has been an abundance of riches this week, including this back of the head serve during the mixed doubles at Wimbledon, The Killers perfectly timed rendition of Mr Brightside during Wednesday’s Euro 2024 semi-final, and football fans mobbing the No. 47 bus bound for Bellingham. We also quite enjoyed Rowan Atkinson’s cheeky impersonation of Martin Brundle on the track at Silverstone, while he was being interviewed by Martin Brundle.

But in homage to England’s head coach, our pick of the week is this heartwarming moment, when merry (ahem) travelling supporters spotted him moonlighting as a German policeman. Southgate you’re the one!