Nike has not signed a Formula 1 deal in more than two decades, and it still has not signed one now. But the pattern of contact building around the sportswear giant this year points somewhere specific: a return to a championship whose commercial trajectory has moved in a different direction from Nike’s own over the same stretch it has stayed away.
According to Sports Business Journal, senior Nike executives held discussions with Formula One Management (FOM), the organization that runs the championship, about a potential sponsorship and licensing arrangement. Nike representatives are also understood to have attended the Miami Grand Prix in May, where those conversations reportedly took place.
No agreement has been reached, and both Nike and F1 declined to comment when approached by the outlet. SBJ’s Adam Stern first reported the talks on August 30; subsequent coverage across the F1 press has repeated the account without adding independent confirmation, so SBJ remains the sole primary source for the story at this stage.
None of this would be uncharted territory for Nike. Michael Schumacher’s move to Ferrari in 1996 marked its most visible Formula 1 involvement of the modern era, through a personal endorsement agreement covering racing footwear and limited-edition merchandise that lasted until 2002, when the seven-time champion signed with FILA.
Since then, Nike has kept its distance from a category rivals have steadily filled in.
adidas holds an apparel partnership with the Mercedes factory team and, from the 2026 season, a second multi-year apparel partnership with the incoming Audi works team. PUMA currently operates Formula 1’s official licensing and merchandise program under a long-term agreement with the championship, while Castore and New Era have also built positions in the sport. It is not yet clear how a Nike deal, if completed, would sit alongside F1’s existing arrangement with PUMA.
The reasons behind Nike’s reported interest sit largely in Formula 1’s own momentum, particularly its pull with younger, more diverse audiences: over the past five years, the championship’s equity story has outperformed Nike’s by a substantial margin, reflecting the diverging trajectories of the two.
For chief executive Elliott Hill, who took over in October 2024 with a mandate to reverse Nike’s decline, F1’s growth curve represents one of the more visible openings in a turnaround strategy still taking shape. Nike is already dabbling in motorsport elsewhere through Michael Jordan’s NASCAR team, 23XI Racing, which the Jordan Brand supports.
The category Nike would be entering is expanding quickly. Bernstein analyst Ian Moore has estimated that Formula 1’s licensing royalties could roughly double by 2028, from about $80 million–$150 million annually today to as much as $310 million. That growth trajectory is the kind of sport economics story SGIE tracks: a rights-holder whose commercial value is rising fast enough to draw in a brand that has spent recent years retrenching elsewhere. In the next few weeks we may know how much of this growth will be linked to Nike’s comeback.
