Luxury Briefing: Will fashion’s sports obsession survive 2025?

Throughout the year, fashion brands increasingly formed collaborations with established sports leagues like the NBA and the PGA, as well as rising leagues that are enjoying growing popularity in the U.S. like the WNBA and Formula 1. The Summer Olympics being held in Paris, the fashion capital of the world, also contributed to the crossover.

But looking ahead to 2025, will fashion’s love affair with the sports world continue? Given the flurry of new sports collaborations announced in the last weeks of the year, it seems like things are going full steam ahead. But there are a few hitches in the road, like the growing sense among some athletes that fashion collaborations are overshadowing the game.

In just the last month of the year, the amount of new fashion x sports partnerships has continued unabated. Brands as diverse as Reebok, watch conglomerate the 1916 Company and the rental platform Rent the Runway have all inked deals with athletes and leagues. On December 19, Reebok announced an overall partnership with the WNBA. The multi-year deal makes Reebok an official supplier for the league. Plus, it will create content with its sponsored athletes like Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky and Lexie Brown of the Los Angeles Sparks.

Colie Edison, chief growth officer of the WNBA, said in the announcement of the deal that the league has benefited greatly from “increased brand awareness” in the last year. The 2024 season averaged 1.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched full season on ESPN ever, growing 155% from the year prior. Edison said she expects that the WNBA will “continue to grow with iconic brands” throughout the next year.

The rise of the tunnel fit has been propulsive to fashion and sports’ crossover. Daniel Kirschner, CEO and co-founder of Greenfly, a media company that gathers and distributes behind-the-scenes content of professional athletes, said tunnel fits have become an essential part of the sports landscape.

“Pictures of athletes walking to the locker room have grown exponentially in the last 10 years,” he said. “I can’t even tell you to what extent. But it’s a massive part of sports culture now. We do analyses of what content athletes are using on their social channels and arrival content is on top of the list.”

Many of fashion’s sports collaborations have been focused on leagues and athletes, like the 1916 Company’s partnership with NBA player Tyrese Maxey, announced on December 9. But the gold rush to partner with the sports world has started to leak out into other parts of the sports industry. Rent the Runway, for example, established a partnership with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader squad. RTR is dressing the cheerleaders for a holiday campaign, and the cheerleaders will be featured in RTR’s social content.

Sports partnerships can also help brands tap into specific local markets. Dallas is an important market for Rent the Runway, according to Rent the Runway CEO and co-founder Jenn Hyman. And the company’s largest fulfillment center is in Texas. Tapping into a local institution like the Cowboys Cheerleaders helps strengthen the company’s presence there, Hyman said.

But there has been some pushback to the increasing presence of fashion in sports. In October, NBA player Kyle Kuzma, known for being one of the kings of ultra-stylish outfits when arriving for a game, announced that he’d be stepping away from the whole tunnel-fit world. He began arriving at games in a series of plain gray sweatsuits instead of his usual eye-catching outfits, saying at the time that he “[didn’t] want to be a part of that type of community” where players face high pressure to look stylish every game.

But Kirschner said he expects Kuzma’s reaction to be an isolated incident, given how popular tunnel fits remain for both brands and athletes.

“I don’t think the connection to fashion is going to weaken over time,” Kirschner said. “Whenever an athlete is struggling on the court, you start to see criticism of how they’re spending their time off the court. But generally, the audience and the athletes love it.”

There’s reason to believe Kirschner is correct. Just after the start of the new NBA season this November, two-time NBA MVP Steph Curry announced a partnership with Rakuten that would see him showcasing a different Black fashion designer with his outfit before every game.

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