US Open 2026: an essential brand and athlete guide

After Wimbledon in July, the US Open is the next test, and one of the biggest, for sporting goods brands chasing visibility through athletes rather than blanket event sponsorship. Fan Week opened this weekend in New York, singles qualifying gets underway today, and the main draw starts Sunday, August 30.

The stakes are real. The 2025 tournament drew a record 1.14 million onsite spectators, and Fan Week set its own attendance record of 239,307 visitors before the main draw even began. Broadcast audiences grew too last year: it was the most-viewed tennis telecast of the year on ESPN, with the men’s final up 82 percent over 2024, and Europe also scored record audiences, with Eurosport’s coverage up 32 percent.

Beyond the court and the competition itself, how are brands approaching this edition? Here’s a roundup of the partnerships, apparel and product innovations shaping their presence in New York.

Nike leans on fewer stars

Despite growing competition from challenger brands, Nike arrives in New York with a smaller but still formidable athlete portfolio. Its visibility depends heavily on Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka, two of the sport’s most recognizable names, after Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz both left the brand for Lululemon and BOSS respectively since 2024.

For Nike, Alcaraz remains the key asset: elite performance combined with youth appeal and global reach few players can match. Sabalenka gives Nike a second lever in the women’s draw; few athletes have dominated hard courts as consistently in recent seasons, and another deep run would extend the brand’s exposure worldwide. That roster churn points to a narrower Nike strategy than in past years: rather than spreading investment across a broad group, the brand appears to be concentrating spend on a smaller number of marquee names.

Notably, that exposure sits on a separate commercial track from equipment: Sabalenka competes with a Wilson racket, a reminder that apparel and racket sponsorships in tennis operate independently of one another.

New Balance concentrates on Coco Gauff

If one player embodies a modern sporting goods success story, it is Coco Gauff, the American world No. 4 and 2023 US Open champion who has become the centerpiece of New Balance’s tennis strategy, and one of the clearest examples of a performance brand building a category around a single athlete. 

Where Nike spreads investment across a broad roster, New Balance has concentrated on Gauff specifically: signature product, athlete-first storytelling and reach among younger consumers have turned her into one of the industry’s most valuable tennis assets.

The brand’s tennis ambitions extend beyond her, too: New Balance’s Wimbledon capsule with Miu Miu   this summer, one of the category’s most prominent fashion crossovers to date, points to a broader push into tennis’ style-conscious audience. A strong US Open run would give New Balance something increasingly hard to secure in modern sports marketing: sustained visibility through one athlete capable of transcending the sport itself.

On builds out its tennis roster

Of all the companies arriving in New York, On may have the most to gain. The Swiss brand built its name in running but has spent recent years expanding into tennis through athlete sponsorships and footwear development alike, helped by Roger Federer, who became an investor in On in 2019 and lent his name to The Roger Pro, the brand’s first performance tennis shoe.

Ben Shelton, the American world No. 6 who has won four titles this season, has become the face of that push on court, and every deep run helps validate a strategy that mirrors On’s approach in running: build around a small number of highly visible names rather than a broad sponsorship portfolio.

That roster has grown this year beyond Shelton alone, adding Iga Swiatek and João Fonseca, though Shelton remains On’s most prominent presence heading into New York. For a company chasing multi-category global status, the US Open is a genuine test of whether that focused-roster strategy extends beyond running.

adidas seeks a return to the spotlight

adidas remains one of tennis’ dominant names but has been overshadowed in recent years by the commercial momentum around Nike, New Balance and On. The German group now has an unexpected boost heading into New York: Alexander Zverev is set to be the men’s No. 1 seed after Jannik Sinner withdrew with a knee injury, handing adidas’s lead athlete the tournament’s most prominent position on the draw sheet.

Jessica Pegula rounds out a roster that has quietly stayed intact while rivals chase headlines elsewhere. For adidas, the opportunity now is converting that seeding into the kind of deep run that reasserts the brand among the category’s leading players, backed by continued investment in on-court product: its CLIMACOOL+ heat-management fabric, using raised 3D structures to lift fabric off the skin, debuted at Wimbledon this summer as adidas’ first systematic thermal-management platform across a full tournament squad.

Wilson’s unique position

While apparel and footwear brands compete through athlete endorsements, Wilson sits in a different place in tennis’ commercial hierarchy. The equipment brand is one of the sport’s best-known racket makers and stays visible regardless of who wins the tournament.

That advantage showed up clearly in Wilson’s own results: the brand’s Ball & Racquet segment accelerated to 24 percent growth in the second quarter of 2026, nearly double the 13 percent pace it posted three months earlier, helping prompt Amer Sports to raise its guidance for the second consecutive quarter. The Blade v10, Wilson’s most extensively revised racket since 2006, launched this spring and is played by four of the top ten women in the world rankings, including world No. 1 Sabalenka, giving Wilson visibility that does not depend on any single outcome in New York.

That resilience is reinforced by participation trends: the United States Tennis Association (USTA) reported in February that Americans played tennis at a record 27.3 million rate in 2025, a sixth consecutive year of growth, expanding the pool of buyers for racket sales well beyond whoever wins this year’s title. Wilson’s own numbers suggest that conversion is already underway: the brand opened 12 net new stores in the quarter alone and expanded its Tennis 360 footprint inside Dick’s Sporting Goods from 250 to 450 doors, with roughly 40 new China stores planned for the year. Unlike footwear brands reliant on a handful of stars, Wilson benefits every time the sport grows.

Five storylines for the sporting goods industry

As play begins in New York, five questions stand out: Can Nike’s narrower athlete strategy still deliver dominant visibility? Can New Balance turn Gauff into a broader global tennis business? Will Shelton or On’s broader roster give the brand its biggest tennis moment yet? Can adidas convert Zverev’s top seeding into the deep run that reasserts the brand among the category’s leaders? And in the racket battle between Wilson and HEAD, can Wilson’s strength on the women’s tour convert into equipment sales as fast as HEAD’s grip on the men’s game?

The answers unfold over the next three weeks.

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