NFL looks to Nike for international help in new 10-year uniform deal

IRVING, Texas — Nike and the NFL have signed a 10-year contract extension to the iconic brand’s rights to design and produce the league’s uniforms. The deal, which begins in 2025, also commits Nike to help the NFL export American football overseas by promoting the sport and athletes in key markets and to research ways to prevent leg and foot injuries. 

Owners voted to approve the contract this morning at their meeting outside Dallas. As a 12-year incumbent, Nike was always considered the front-runner to renew, but NFL staff told owners in October that competing bids were in play. 

“We like to partner with the best of the best, and I think Nike’s proved that they are,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told SBJ in an exclusive interview. “I think as a sports brand I think they’re seen as the top of the chain.”

Precise terms were not disclosed, but along with an escalation to the basic rights fee, sources said, the contract includes a minimum guaranteed spend on international promotion across the life of the deal. 

The details of Nike’s committed international work are still to be developed, but obvious entry points would be with development camps, team activations abroad, flag football, and the league’s international player pathway program, the NFL’s program to increase the number of foreign players in the league. 

The NFL is increasingly looking for help from sponsors with bigger international footprints in popularizing the sport abroad.

Separately, Nike also pledged to spend research and development budget on finding ways to limit foot, ankle and leg injury through better footwear design – and to share that information with the NFL’s own health and safety team.

Goodell credited new Nike CEO Elliott Hill, who started Oct. 14, for closing the deal. “He prioritized the NFL right from the get-go,” Goodell said. “It was within a few days after he became CEO when he called. We met within a couple more weeks, and really understood what Nike was looking for in the relationship and what the NFL was looking for in the relationship. And those are the best ones, when there’s alignment.” 

Nike also gets non-exclusive rights to promote flag football as part of a broader commitment to help develop the overall ecosystem of football at the youth, scholastic and college level. 

“We want to make sure that flag grows everywhere and so if other manufacturers have the opportunity to participate, we want to make sure that that happens,” said NFL CRO Renie Anderson. 

The current Nike deal didn’t expire until after the ’27 season, so the 10-year deal extends its NFL rights through the end of the ‘37 season. But all the new elements to the deal begin in 2025, Anderson said.

Goodell said the Nike extension will usher in a new era of collaboration and strategic alignment under Hill, who began his career as an assistant athletic trainer with the Dallas Cowboys before joining Nike.

“We agree we want to make football global,” Goodell said. “We agree that we want to make players safer, healthier, and perform at the highest possible levels. We agree that we want to get the kids playing the game. We agree that we want to promote our players, and support our players in what they’re doing. So all those things, that when you have that iconic brand, Nike, is behind that with the NFL, we think that’s a powerful combination.”

The core of the deal will remain largely the same. Nike will continue to be the exclusive provider of uniforms and sideline, practice, and base layer apparel. Fanatics will continue to have a sublicense to manufacturer the coaches’ sideline gear and fan replica jerseys.

However, sources said, the NFL did claw back rights previously held by Nike in the athleisure category. This will allow the league and Fanatics to market fan gear developed by brands such as Lululemon, sources said.

This deal also sets up Nike to play a large role in the run-up to the LA28 Olympics, where flag football will make it Olympic debut. Nike is an official licensee and outfitter of those Games and the USOPC.