Nike Is Banking On Kim K Being Like Mike

…but what if we told you it didn’t have to be this way? Why not give the other football a try? Its storylines are just as good, they’ve got just as much drama, and the fans are just as crazed (positive). Find your team here.  

The craziest story you’ve ever heard is going to be a book and a movie. No, but really, listen to Sarah the unbelievable story here. She and its subject matter, Deland Mccullough, will tell it in book form, too. It comes out June 3rd. Preorder here.

Tiger Woods’ golf brand, Sun Day Red, has pegged Karl Vilips as its first official ambassador. Mr. Ambassador from the great nation of Stanford, may you serve your constituency well. Are people like Karl helping make golf a fashion-forward sport? 

Rugby fans in the Midwest, hear ye hear ye! Two of the best rugby teams in the world—The All Blacks of New Zealand and Ireland) are set to play in Chicago, on foreign territory, November 1. Are you rooting for the kiwis or the boyos?  

Supreme keeps delivering with their collabs. They gave us a taste of their SS25 collection with Umbro, and fans of England, Aston Villa, West Ham, and Burnley are gonna like the way they look. We guarantee it!

Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Last week, our sister newsletter, SportsVerse, analyzed how Nike was on track for a big cultural comeback after a challenging two years, putting together a string of exciting partnerships and marketing activations centered around the power of women’s sports.

As if they’d been listening in, the sportswear giant shocked the world yesterday with the launch of NikeSkims, a new brand brought to you by Nike and Kim Kardashian’s shapewear megabrand, Skims. NikeSkims, which will launch globally in 2026 but will be released in secret retail locations and online this spring, is women’s activewear—good for everything from intense HIIT classes to intense lounging around and watching TV. According to a press release, the new brand will offer “best-in-class innovation in service of all women athletes.” Lululemon and Alo Yoga, watch out. 

Skims already had NBA and WNBA teams in their marketing materials (thank you for putting so many beautiful humans in their underwear, Skims), so with Nike’s help, we imagine there will be even more superstars repping them.

This partnership is significant because the footwear giant has never before partnered with an outside brand in this same way. Nike has even created a separate internal division to work specifically on NikeSkims—similar to how it runs its $7 billion Jordan brand—that’s how seriously they’re taking this. They even created a NikeSkims employee ID badge for Kim (employee number 001). Anyways, we don’t really know about the financial details behind the deal, but we do know Nike’s stock saw an immediate 6% jump. Obviously, Nike’s valuation dwarfs Skims’, but $4B ain’t too shabby either. 

And regardless of dollars, this partnership makes good cents—oops, sense, because Kim K brings 358 Million followers wherever she goes. She’s probably the most famous woman in the world. Except the girl reading this, of course.

Everyone’s trying to crack the streaming code to get the most eyes on their content these days. We’ve seen it with the rise of FAST Channels (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television), established brands like CW launching a sports vertical, and even social media with games being live cast onto Facebook or formerly Twitter. The Pac-12 Conference recently said they’d seek out non-traditional TV windows, and possibly opt for competing linear and streaming channels. 

And all this testing and strategizing and formulating might just be the future of streaming and TV deals. 

Cristiano Ronaldo, though, gave a whole new dimension to athlete YouTube channels and how leagues can continue to use non-traditional channels to reach people. On Monday, Ronaldo’s 74 million YouTube subscribers had the chance to tune into the Premiere Padel P1 finals, which took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The tournament was also broadcast on Red Bull TV, ESPN and others, but this unprecedented move gave the tourney a boost, and tested out a whole new type of streaming service. At the time of writing, the event is sitting at an impressive 675k views. 

What’s crazier, is Ronaldo actually wasn’t being paid for use of his platform. He just happens to be one of the world’s biggest fans of the sport (also an investor, did we mention that?). We’ll keep our eyes peeled because we have a feeling he won’t be the last athlete to leverage his platform in this way. 

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