France’s forward Kylian Mbappe holds a pair of shoes during a training session at the Luzhniki trining field in Moscow on July 14, 2018 on the eve of the Russia 2018 World Cup final football match between France and Croatia. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
For decades, the soccer shoe market has operated as a stable oligopoly at the top: Nike and Adidas dominate the sport’s biggest stars, with Puma occupying a strong third position, and a handful of smaller brands fighting over what’s left.
Kylian Mbappe’s announcement to leave Nike for On — a 17-year-old Swiss company with zero prior presence in soccer — doesn’t just represent the French superstar changing sponsors. It’s a signal that the market’s structure may finally be loosening. At the same time, it raises real questions about how sportswear brands will need to compete for elite talent going forward.
The scale of the departure is worth sitting with. Mbappe’s relationship with Nike began in 2006 when he was just nine years old, meaning the brand effectively built and shaped one of the game’s defining commercial identities from childhood. That Nike lost him anyway — despite consolidating its soccer roster in recent years specifically around a small number of marquee names like Cristiano Ronaldo and Erling Haaland — shows that even the deepest, longest-standing athlete relationships in sportswear are no longer immune to disruption if a competitor offers the right terms.
The terms of this deal are genuinely different in both scope and size. Mbappe hasn’t simply signed an endorsement deal; he’s reportedly received equity in On, a stake that repositions him from paid spokesperson to actual company stakeholder, with a hand in product development through On’s design and testing teams.
That structure mirrors what On has already done in tennis with Roger Federer, whose 2019 deal similarly included equity and helped elevate On from a niche running brand into a legitimate multi-sport player. Applying that same playbook to the world’s most popular sport, with a considerably higher-profile athlete, suggests On isn’t looking to compete as a conventional challenger brand. It’s also trying to buy instant credibility in a sport where credibility has historically taken decades to build.
The hiring of Thierry Henry as Director of Football adds another layer to that strategy. Bringing in a legend of the game to work in-house, for the better part of a year before this announcement, indicates On understood that entering the soccer boot market required more than product engineering — it required someone with playing pedigree and relationships who could credibly recruit a player like Mbappe.
Meanwhile, the competitive implications extend well beyond Nike. Adidas and Puma, the brands that have effectively split the remaining share of elite soccer sponsorships for years, now have to reckon with a well-funded new entrant capable of poaching top-tier talent with an equity structure neither has historically offered at scale.
Other brands, like New Balance and Skechers, have spent recent years trying to establish themselves as legitimate alternatives in the soccer show market, suddenly find themselves with a better-resourced, higher-profile rival occupying the same “upstart challenger” positioning they’d been building toward. On’s entrance doesn’t just add a competitor. Instead, it potentially crowds out the space those brands were counting on to differentiate themselves.
There’s also a broader athlete-empowerment trend this deal fits into. Elite athletes across sports have increasingly pushed for equity, creative control and more direct involvement in product decisions rather than accepting the traditional model of collecting a paycheck to wear a brand’s existing product. Mbappe’s own comments about the deal and wanting to “build something entirely new” and shape “tomorrow’s game” echo that shift.
The new boots won’t arrive until next year. Mbappe is expected to debut them in the coming weeks before reaching consumers. That gap will function as an extended, high-visibility marketing campaign, with Mbappe’s on-field performances with France and Real Madrid (and upcoming appearance in EA Sports FC 2027) building anticipation long before shoppers can buy them.
Whether On can actually convert this splashy signing into sustained market share remains an open question. Plenty of ambitious sportswear launches have fizzled after an initial signing coup. This signing, however, feels different.
“From the beginning, what drew me to On was the opportunity to build something entirely new together that will help shape tomorrow’s game, I want to bring my experience and perspective into what we create, push what’s possible through innovation, and always stay true to the joy of football,” Mbappe said. “We have a shared dream, and this is only the beginning.”
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