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Hi and welcome back to the Glossy Podcast. I'm Zafir Zwaglinska, international fashion reporter at Glossy and this week we're looking at the 2026 World cup through a fashion and brand lens because it's this year's tournament held across the Americas for the first time and it is back in the US for the first time since 1994. It's also one of the biggest global marketing stages left, and for companies like Nike, Adidas and Puma, it's arriving at a particularly revealing moment. Nike is still the biggest kind of sportswear company in the world, but is also in the middle of a reset. In its latest quarter, the company reported flat revenue, declining Nike direct sales, and a tougher outlook in China. At the same time, it is trying to refocus on sport, rebuild wholesale relationships and make the swoosh feel culturally sharp again. I know that maybe some people have some thoughts on that. Adidas, meanwhile, is coming into the tournament with a much cleaner football story. It's latest kind of Backyard Legends campaign that just came out brought together Timothee Chalamet, Lionel Messi, Bad Bunny, Jude Bellingham, Lamina Yamal, Trinity Rodman, Zinedine Zidane, and a particularly youthful AI, David Beckham in a short film built around neighborhood football, nostalgia and global celebrity. And I don't think it's fair to count Puma out either. Based on current kit counts, Adidas is outfitting 14 teams at the 2026 World Cup, Nike 12 and Puma 11. So together those three brands account for 37 out of the 48 teams in the tournament, or about 77%. So today we're asking who is best positioned to own World cup culture? Is this still a Nike vs Adidas story or is it now a three way fight? And what does the jersey market tell us about where sport, fashion and fandom are heading? And just a disclaimer to everyone, we are going to be talking about football as soccer rather than talking about soccer throughout. And to unpack all of this, I'm joined by Daniel your Miller creative lead, special projects at offball, a digital sports culture media platform, and the writer behind Sportsverse, previously also @BOF and the newsletter that I've been tracking the most around the intersection of sport, fashion, culture and business. Daniel, welcome.
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Thank you so much. And thank you for that lovely intro. I could talk about this all day, so I'm excited to get into it.
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Yeah. And before we get into kind of Nike and Adidas specifically, I want to kind of start with a bigger Picture just around the World Cup. So the World cup is the first with 48 teams. It's also being hosted across the U.S. canada and Mexico. So already the scale is different. More teams, more kits, more fan bases, more host cities, and more merchandising opportunities than previous tournaments. I think what feels especially interesting right now is that football is also becoming much more kind of culturally relevant in the US I feel like this conversation is heard again and again every time that there's a bigger football moment, but it does feel like this one is particularly large. Nielsen said that 37% of the general population expects its interest in soccer to increase over the next 18 months. And among existing World cup fans, that rises to 74%. And YouGov has also found that US hosting is a major driver of all of this. So 43% of US sports fans citing the tournament being held in the US as a reason that they're going to be watching the matches. And we're also seeing that show up with audience. The MLS league has its second highest attendance ever. Last year, I think it was 11.2 million fans after setting a record in 2024. And the US Men's Copa America match against Uruguay in 24 averaged 3.78 million viewers on FS1, the highest kind of Eng language US audience ever for a Copa America match. So I think the World cup is not creating any interest from nothing. It is already arriving to a warmed up market. And it also appears that football for some reason really resonates with fans. Kind of outside of football itself. You have fashion people, musicians, creators, sneaker communities, collectors, and also younger customers and consumers who might engage with the snow sport through jerseys, through players, TikTok clips and style moments. So from your perspective, what makes this World cup different from a brand and a cultural standpoint?
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I think it's all of the things you mentioned. It's a culmination of so many different factors. But I think one thing that can't be kind of understated is the value of the North America World Cup. And I think obviously there's a lot of discussion, and rightfully so, about some of the external factors surrounding it politically, socially. But like from a brand and marketing perspective, I think we haven't seen a World cup or a sports tournament of this scale in many years that is so well positioned for the biggest and most powerful kind of companies and brands in the world to make the most of it and justify the case for investing it in this way. I think if you think about the previous World Cups in Qatar and before that in Russia and before that in Brazil, which had its own complications. It's been a very long time since there was a World cup in a location that was kind of the home seat of so many of these huge companies and brands in their backyard. So, like, that goes for Nike, it goes for the Coca Cola, The Pepsi, the McDonald's. Every brand that will kind of have a stake in this, kind of in this World cup in some significant way really has a major market, if not their home market, in North America, which means it's that much more justifiable and it's that much more essential for them to go big or go home with their marketing. And we've seen that already before a ball has even been kicked in this tournament, how, how big brands have been investing. And I'm sure we'll come on to speak about that. But I think the one, the one thing is the location. And we saw that bear out with the previous Olympics, which again, was in Paris, a key global market. And again, the first time the Olympics had happened in a market like that for several editions. And we saw how brands went all out with that one, too. And I think it'll be the same with this World Cup.
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Okay, so obviously we have seen some campaigns already from Nike, Adidas, Puma. Tell me what you kind of expect from them to do during this one, because as you said, it's a local market for Nike. It's a perfect stage for them to kind of try and wrestle back this football prowess, because I think a lot of the times they've been focusing on other athletes on a kind of broader performance message. So what do you think they will be doing here at this World Cup?
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Yeah, it's a fascinating dynamic, like you say, because it's Nike's backyard, but at the same time, it's almost going to be like a home game for Adidas because of the fact that Adidas is almost like the original football brand in the way that Nike is the original basketball brand. And Adidas is an official sponsor of the tournament, which means it kind of has that advantage in that sense. But Nike has great heritage in football. I think, like you say, for a long time, Nike's maybe gravitated away and focused on. On different things for various reasons. But when Elliot Hill, the current CEO, came in at the end of 2024, he kind of set out like this strategy called sports offense, which was to turn around the brand with around like five key pillars, and one of them was football. And we've seen that kind of bear out in the way the brand has invested its marketing dollars in the lead up to this World cup, it's really gone all out on. On kind of a rollout of not just marketing, but kind of product moments as well in a way that we haven't really seen before, especially leaning on collaboration strategies specific to each team. So, for example, we've seen France, France, Nike and the Jacquemus Collection, which is going to come out. We've seen like the England palace, as in palace skateboards brand collaboration with Nike. We've seen Nike as kind of assign its nocta sub label, the one that runs with Drake, to the Team Canada collection. And a few weeks before or a couple of months ago, for the first time, the Jordan brand reentered football with a partnership with the Brazil team. So Nike's kind of almost treating like each kind of key international federation it partners with as a sub brand in its own right. And it's like really kind of moving its pieces around to drive the most heat out of each of them. And I think that's fascinating. We haven't seen that before on this scale at a World Cup.
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Yeah. And it feels like a lot of that is kind of based on, like, cultural partnerships. Like, obviously, like a lot of football is based on, you know, kind of youth culture, on these, like, subsets, fan communities, like, all of that. Do you think Nike's done that successfully in the past and is there a reason like that it's coming back to it now, you know, in such a bigger way?
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I think Nike's definitely done that successfully in the past, but probably in other sports, like, I think, I think to sports like basketball.
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Yeah.
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And I think they've done that in so many different ways. I think in the past, Nike had very successful kind of like sub brands within football itself. So I don't know if people are familiar with the. The T90 or total 90 line, which was kind of like a line of football boots and clothing that was very popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. And a lot of us who grew up in the UK and love football will know and love kind of like T90 is like the boot or the kind of like piece of clothing or whatever that you kind of like, remember, either when you think of the great players at that time who are all Nike players, like Ronaldinho, Thierry, Wayne Rooney, all wearing kind of like T90 products, and it was this kind of like revered kind of sub brand. And I think Nike had a lot of that. Like, whether it's the kind of material boot lines or Things like that. Nike really kind of like punched above its weight with these kind of like mythical sub brands. I think now we're in an era where Nike's trying to bring those back. But at the same time it's kind of like tapping into these external collaborators like we mentioned, like palace or Shakmus, to really like kind of drive that fashion heat, which like you say for the first time we're really seeing on a wide scale how like wider interest from fashion and music is pouring into mainstream football.
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Yeah, of course. And obviously you've reported very widely out on both Nike and Adidas. Tell me a little bit more about kind of what went wrong with Nike, just to kind of catch up people who are listening in.
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Yeah, I think the sportswear market is very cyclical. Nike and Adidas usually kind of like trade periods of dominance on five to seven year cycles. And Nike had a really kind of like good run from the late 2010s through to the beginning of the pandemic, just based off of where the market was. There was such high demand for retro basketball style sneakers, which Nike and its sub brand Jordan really specialize in. And I think Nike went all in on production of those really ramped up production under its previous CEO, John Donahoe. the same time, it was kind of pursuing a strategy where it was getting rid of a lot of his kind of most trusted retail partners and looking to sell products through its direct channels, whether it was a website or the Sneakers app. And that was a strategy kind of being pursued across the market as well. It turns out it didn't work out very well for Nike because kind of one of the most kind of unique things about Nike is like how embedded it was in various different cultures and cities and towns through all these like different retailers and who would really kind of like fly the flag for the Nike brand. And that was kind of a false dawn during the pandemic when all markets, including the sneaker market, was inflated and there were kind of like very regular shoes selling on the resale markets for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. And that again encouraged Nike's previous management to pump up production even more. And then all of a sudden the tide went out and people's stimulus check money ran out. People's disposable kind of income reduced as the pandemic drew, or the height of the pandemic drew to a close. And at the same time, the market moved on very quickly all of a sudden from those retro stars fueling the bulk of Nike sales. That was coupled with the fact that Adidas was snapped back very fast from. From a very, very catastrophic crisis of its own. And with that snap back came the rise of one of Adidas like greatest retro sneakers, like the Adidas Samba, followed by the Adidas Gazelle, which really kind of became the go to in silhouette that really is almost like still popular to this day. And those things kind of conspired to expose a lot of kind of empty spots in the Nike brand that kind of had been left neglected by the previous management. And that's kind of where like, the key things how, like the key kind of reasons why the wheels came off the Nike train in that way.
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Yeah. And I think what you mentioned around Adidas is really true because obviously those two sneakers are now kind of the absolute peak worn by everyone and definitely something that they're going to be leaning into the World Cup. So maybe apart from that. And I know that we touched a little bit already on the Backyard's Legend campaign. Tell me a little bit more about that, because I know that this is something that's really interesting. I'm personally very interested in how they've brought back these legends and also kind of how they're leaning into football nostalgia, which I feel like has been the biggest theme of this whole World cup so far. What did you make of the campaign? And I guess what did you think it says about what Adidas is thinking for the World cup as well.
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I mean, you mentioned football nostalgia, and that's one thing Adidas can sell, and that's one thing Adidas has in abundance. Like, football nostalgia is what is driving the market right now. Like, everything, everything, everything. And you spoke about the samba just now. Like, the samba was, was the shoe that Adidas made in the 1950s or 1960s for use on, I see pitches for the, like the German national team. Like that, like, that was at the time was an innovative shoe for football. And obviously now it's used in a completely different context. It looks very different to the original. But if you take a trip to, to the Adidas headquarters in, in Herzogenaura in Germany, like, you'll see that, like, the archive is stacked full of football nostalgia. And like, you really get the sense that it's a football brand. And I think that goes to the very top of the organization because the CEO, Bjorn Gordon, is a former professional footballer himself. If you meet him, if you speak to him, he's a football fanatic and lives and breathes the sport in every single way. And that kind of has been a constant thread in kind of Adidas turnaround from its own Crisis back in 2023, football has really kind of, like, channeled growth. And I think Adidas realized very quickly that just as powerful as, like, current sports stars can be, there's nothing like the nostalgia that people associate with past legends of the sport. And. And, like, when you think about past legends of the sport, you saw a lot of them in. In the Backyard Legends campaign, but Adidas has so many of them. Like, whether that's like, David Beckham, Zinedine Sudan, various, like, Brazilian superstars from. From the 90s and 2000s, there's truly just like a, like, Italian legends like Alessandro Del Adidas has access to them all, and they've done a really good job of keeping them in their universe under endorsement contracts, ambassador contracts that usually kind of are reserved for active athletes. But I think when you think of the kind of generation of consumers right now who has the biggest spending power, they all grew up in an era watching these greats. And I think to tie those legends and the sense of nostalgia they carry to current players in the Adidas roster, again, who are, like, at the height of culture and fandom themselves, like Jude Bellingham, Trinity Rodman, Lamina Mal, all these amazing talents like Usman Dembele, who just won a second Champions League in a row against my team, Arsenal. It's just. That's okay. I'm over it. I'm not over it, but it's fine. It's just. It's just like the perfect storm of both bringing the younger consumers along on the journey of, like, look at these greats. And also, like, look at the people like, yeah, look at these greats who paved the way for this next generation of stars. And they're all in the Adidas ecosystem. And I think that's exactly what played out in the Backyards Legends campaign, which only really a brand like Adidas could pull off.
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Yeah, exactly, because you have actors, you have footballers, you have, as you mentioned, like, legends and greats. I have to ask about the AI element just because, like, I cover a lot of tech. And it feels particularly interesting to me that I think it was David Beckham, but also I think some of the other players were basically made to look young again in the campaign and obviously play among the players. So this is a digital kind of reproduction of them. From what I understand, they're not actually physically in the campaign. Do you think that's something that will affect how fans see this, or will they be thinking, well, this is really cool? And it kind of makes it look like These legends are playing with these current players. And I quite like that.
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That. Yeah, my, my general read on, on people's reaction was that like, if it's, if it's good enough, you can almost kind of get away with it. Because, like, I mean, you and I have both seen like, how many, how many like, fashion brands have, have, have caught like the wrath of the online community for, for AI generated content, advertising campaigns, all of that. But it's almost like that, like the, the, the renderings of them were so good and so like, again, it's like playing on the nostalgia. Like, I, I was looking at Beckham and Sedan, like, and it was taking me back to like, my early childhood memories of like, watching them on the tv, like fighting out of the World cup or in the Champions League. And it's almost like again, I didn't, I didn't see personally when I was kind of like reviewing everything, any sort of backlash against that. But again, it's almost like, I think if it's, if it's good enough, and I think when used appropriately, and I would say that was an appropriate use, in my opinion, you can almost get away with it.
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Yeah. It's interesting actually, because obviously with America as well, I think a lot of the ads are going to be somewhat AI involved and this feels like a little kind of nod to that. So I'm wondering if any of the other apparel brands are also going to start putting out AI campaigns during the World cup, because as we know with the Super Bowl, I think the US does have a very heavy kind of ad environment, and it's does differ significantly for the World Cup, I think there's certain rules around the kind of ads that can be displayed, when they can be displayed. But there have also been a number of kind of changes happening. For this World cup. For example, things like the halftime show is not really a thing, but in this World cup, we do have it. So tell me a little bit more about this ad environment for brands, because it does feel like a bigger opportunity than maybe some things previously.
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Absolutely. I think in this World cup we're going to see a shift of kind of like the visual product to something that's a lot closer to the Super Bowl. As you mentioned, I think there's a lot of kind of pressure both in international football and kind of European domestic football as well, for kind of like a broader scope for brands and advertisers to be able to have moments to capture people's attention, like within the game itself, which to traditional football fans, especially in Europe, is probably like sickening. But such is the state of the kind of corporate, the corporate environment in which football is operating at the moment, given how much kind of like private equity money and sovereign wealth money is flooding into the sport. I think advertisers, sponsors, brands see the opportunity and want returns. And I think that's why we're seeing moments like the halftime show or coming into World cup final, which I mean, like even like 10, 15 years ago would have been unthinkable, I guess. I think there are going to be so many more moments for that to, for those kind of like opportunities to arise. And I think even in the pre tournament rollout of all the brand and marketing moments, we are seeing like brands not just in sportswear, but like outside to like consumer brands. Really treating it as if this is like a Super Bowl.
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B
Yeah, exactly. And I think it's obviously because it's happening in America that that is such a big thing. We talked about nostalgia and I think you mentioned a little bit around the Nike and Jacques Moose kit, but the kits are kind of the thing that makes the apparel legendary. There's so many kind of nostalgic kits that people go back to. There's a whole community online that is reinventing vintage kits and kind of thinking about redesigning some of those really classic silhouettes. And I'm sure that this will also be a kind of stage to see what kits all of these different brands will be coming out with. Kind of like a kit battle based on the current counts. As we said, Adidas has 14 teams in the World Cup, Nike has 12 and Puma has 11. So with the working list being with Adidas going across Argentina, Germany, Japan, Mexico and Spain. Nike has Brazil, England, France, Netherlands and the US And Puma has Portugal, Morocco, Switzerland, Ghana, Senegal and. And some others, what does that kind of tell us about where the power sits in the kit market? Because some of these teams are bigger and obviously have bigger players attached to them as well.
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Absolutely. I mean, there's so many different subplots that happen during the World cup itself. Like there's obviously the main kind of narrative about who's going to win which country will win the tournament. There's the other narrative about which brand out of the sportswear brands will win the tournament, which is one I'm equally interested in. And I think that's split into two separate ones because whichever team wins the tournament, their brand can say they've won it. But I think now with how many marketing moments that go in to the tournament itself, that's Slightly more nuanced. And there can be a brand that maybe wins the tournament or grabs a lot of the attention that doesn't necessarily have a team that goes on to win. And I think we've seen that play out in the past. Puma is not really thought of as a brand that kind of like sits among Nike and Adidas, but I think it punches above its weight in the sense that it has a bit more creative freedom. And historically, it's outfitted teams that really have gone down the history of some of the most unique kind of visual moments in World cup history. So, for example, like Senegal and various other kind of African teams, which Puma skews more heavily towards, have had some very historic hits going back decades. And I think those live long in the memories for a lot of football fans. And I think then you can see Nike and Adidas dominance. Were the big footballing powerhouse nations, and you would think that one of them, whether that's France for Nike or Spain for Adidas or Argentina for Adidas, will end up battling out in the final. And of course, there's going to be lots of reactive marketing moments. But I think really, like, the marketing battle for the tournament is one in the lead up and between. Kind of like when we saw the Backyards Legends campaign come out and June 11th when the tournament kicks off, I think that's really when it's going to be decided. And Nike still kind of rolling out its. Its final kind of touches. I think we've seen a lot of what Adidas has to see so far, which was a very strong showing. But, yeah, like the next week or so is going to be a very interesting time.
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B
Yeah, and I think that that's also really a good point because a lot of these niche teams or ones that are maybe not set to win also do have a very kind of strong visual presence and an opportunity every time they're coming out. You know, everything from walking into stadiums or connecting, there's this whole other bit business of, I guess, the sports, what's it called? Tunnels. All of the different elements of sports and fashion mixing together, where it's not just purely on the pitch, it's also outside of it. And we've seen things like the Mongolia kit taking off in the Olympics. That's not something that you would see typically, and it's not maybe a country that's stated to win, but it is definitely a defining kind of fashion moment. So tell me a little bit more about kind of what's going to be happening off the pitch, because it does feel like, especially with PSG and maybe French players, like, there's a lot more attention on their fashion outside of, you know, what they're doing on. On the pitch.
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Absolutely. I mean, the front. The French national team is kind of like they've been doing it for. For almost decades, really like incorporating that kind of like, sense of fashion and style. And it's like a really fascinating exercise. Like if you have a lot of time and interest, like I do to look at these things. If you go back and look at like the. They've always kind of shot their, like the. The player arrivals at their national center training camps, as if they were like arriving at a fashion show. Like almost street style photography going back decades now. And it's like a really fascinating evolution of looking at like how football player style has evolved over the years. Especially like when you look at the era before they all had stylists to now very different. That's a very fascinating look. But that model has really kind of been replicated across like various teams, national teams, leagues now, across the footballing landscape. And obviously that, that inspiration came From like the NBA's tunnel walk, of course, but I think, I think this tunnel walk concept is going to be again, this will be the World cup where we really see it come to the fore the most. Also, the concept of like team arrivals is a very, like, it's a real ritual, especially for African countries. And they'll often, a lot of like, especially West African countries will have like dance routines and music rout that they come into the stadium and like dressed up in like we saw in the African cup of nations tournament how they kind of like dressed up in like traditional wear and things like that. And I think we'll see that come into it as well. And I think in this tournament as well, we're going to see the kind of wider scope of kind of fan involvement and fan culture just because of how many different teams are involved. Like, as you mentioned at the start, it's the largest number of teams ever involved in a World Cup. And so many teams coming from abroad will have it feeling like it's a home game just because of the kind of like diaspora populations within North America. Teams like Haiti, for example, various West African teams, depending on where they play in the US And I think that will play a huge role in the look and feel of fashion and style in and around the stadiums and arenas throughout North America.
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Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that fan element is going to change kind of the way that the World cup is going to be seen across TV as well, because the local stages are important. But this is also a huge and widely televised. The kind of fan reactions and all of that get on screen too. So I'm sure we'll see a lot of interesting fan shirts. I think there's been some stats that the Toronto police has recently seized more than 3.5 million Canadian dollars in counterfeit soccer merchandise ahead of the World cup, so including fake FIFA, Nike, Adidas and Puma branded jerseys and flags. So I think there's going to be a lot of different and possibly counterfeit versions of various kits and we might see some fan created versions too, because I think there's a lot more leaning on community nowadays. Obviously we've talked a little bit about which teams might win. Who is your bet to win the World Cup?
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A
As much as I'd love to say England, as much as I'd love to say England because I'm from England, and as much as I'd love to say Ghana, because I'm from Ghana, I think it's going to be France. I can't look past France, France as a team just because of how impressive they are across the whole pitch. And the PSG team that won the Champions League final was their forward line was stacked full of the same lineup that France will have at the World cup and they're pretty unbeatable in world football right now. So I think if it's going to be anyone, it will be France. What about you?
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B
Yeah, I'm definitely betting on France, but I'd love it if it was one of the American teams. At least if it's not kind of central, it would be somewhere in South America. I think that would be very cool and I know that that would be a bigger win for Adidas as well. I think we've seen that already with races like the London Marathon, that there is a kind of feeling of someone winning out, especially if there's tech involved. But I don't think this time around it would be about the tech because obviously team sport, team spirit. So I'm hoping that Adidas wins this one, but it sounds like you're going to think that Nike's going to win, which, yeah, I'm not going to be putting that on any of the bet websites anytime soon. What's your favorite kit for the ones that have come out so far? Because I know there's been a couple of releases already.
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I always love the Japan kits. Adidas always make great Japan kits. Honestly, I'm gutted about two teams not making it in Because Nigeria, Nike always make incredible Nigeria kits and Adidas made some incredible Jamaica kits and neither of those countries made it into the World cup, so that's a real shame. Japan, I think Japan for me, like the Japan goalkeeper kits, especially the Awake kit. Really, really, really great. I also love the Haiti kits.
- [29:31]
B
Let me check this out. Japan Awaken. Oh, that is cute. It's like a multicolor, like kind of like a rainbow thing on a white background. That is very cool. Very, very nice. Yeah, I think that one's really cool. I do think the Jacquemus one is a little bit basic. So I'm hoping to see more interesting kits, like ones that do have vintage kind of prints or something. I think those are the ones that are most interesting and I think the African countries do tend to do better with the kits. So I'm really excited to see some of those early matches as well with more of those players. Yeah. All right, well, thank you so much, Dan, for coming onto the Glossy podcast talking about Adidas, Nike World cup usa. I know that the political environment is a whole other thing and it will also be affecting the World cup. So we'll wait to see how that will impact the football. But for now I think we're just waiting until June 11th, right, to see the first matches from the tournament. Looking forward to seeing and following along. Thank you so much, Dan, for coming on the podcast.
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A
Thank you too. Thanks for having me. I could speak about this for hours and I'm looking forward to debriefing after the tournament. Thank you again.
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B
Well, maybe we'll do a catch up episode afterwards just to see what was the winners. The. The winners from our predictions as well.
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A
Exactly.
- [30:55]
B
And that's all the time that we have this week. Don't forget to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you're listening to this, it really helps us out a lot. Thanks for listening.
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Sat.