Taking an ownership position rather than an endorsement deal, NBA center Andre Drummond has joined Stria Sport as both equity holder and Creative Director. The Chicago indie brand has been quietly expanding its retail presence since its 2021 launch.
Andre Drummond has taken an equity stake in Stria Sport and will be serving as the brand’s Creative Director, according to Nick DePaula on X and to Modern Notoriety.
The veteran center is playing nowadays for the Philadelphia 76ers and has the Detroit Pistons, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Brooklyn Nets and the Chicago Bulls on his résumé. He has been the NBA’s rebound champion four times and an All-Star twice. Once 2025/26 season is over he will be a free agent.
Stria was founded in 2020 or 2021 (depending on the source) by Eric Porter, who was at the time working in real estate. Its first shoe, shipped in 2021, was the first of the 107 Series, so named because Porter – who played D-I and D-III basketball at Loyola Chicago and Lake Forest College respectively – once made 107 three-pointers in a row.
“I went full time [with Stria Sport] in the beginning of 2023,” Porter told Footwear News (FN) in 2023. “In the beginning, the brand was kind of a side thing to see if people even liked the shoes. We made them based on our experience from our [college basketball] careers, and we ended up selling a lot of shoes. After a couple years of testing the market, seeing if there was room for the shoes, people liked them so I made the jump.”
Drummond will work with Stria Sport founder Eric Porter as a “key decision maker” on product design, campaigns, partnerships and brand vision.
— Nick DePaula (@NickDePaula) March 2, 2026
“I’m not just an NBA player,” says Drummond. “I’m a Creative Director, an Owner, and this goes much deeper than basketball.” https://t.co/tfRPV7JxXP pic.twitter.com/pGGNxnuZTZ
At the time the company’s staff consisted of Porter and, as FN put it, “several part-timers,” while its premises consisted of an office and warehouse just outside Chicago. The brand had been doing all of its business direct-to-consumer, but in 2023 it signed retail contract with Scheels, a private sporting-goods and entertainment chain with 34 stores in 16 US states – the so-called heartland of the contiguous 48, with the coasts and the south excluded. At the time the deal put Stria shoes in a “handful” of Scheels stores and offered them through the Scheels website, but Porter spoke of “looking to build long-term with” the retailer.
Since then Stria has introduced a casual shoe, the Easy Stride, and one of the few signature pickleball shoes on the market, the G1. The latter is the shoe of Gabe Tardio, a Bolivian player who ranks high on the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) tour.
Models from the 107 line were reportedly worn in competition at the last summer Olympics.
In its latest sponsorship, secured last December, Stria is supplying the official sneaker to the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals, both of which are these days under the ownership of Herschend Family Entertainment.
Aside from two years (2015-17) – when the Globetrotters tried using the World All-Stars as their foil – the two teams have been putting on basketball exhibitions together for decades. Founded in 1952, the Generals were owned by the Klotz family until 2015. Herschend acquired them in 2017. The Globetrotters are at present, in 2026, playing their centennial season.
