Inside Nike’s second innings in India
Within six days, Nike returned to Indian cricket and launched its first running shoe designed for India. Much of the comeback is being built outside Nike India, a loss-making wholesaler.
This has been a rather busy month in Beaverton, Oregon, home to Nike’s global headquarters. India has had much to do with it.
In Mumbai, Kieron Pollard wore a pale blue pinstriped top for his first interview as Mumbai Indians (MI) head coach. It was cut loose, like an American baseball shirt, with “Mumbai Indians” running across the chest in looping script and a Nike swoosh above it.
The shirt had been put together over a few weeks. MI announced Nike as its new kit partner two days before Pollard’s unveiling, with the first collection still months away, so the two sides made something in time for the shoot. They have yet to decide whether to sell it, although fans were soon asking where they could buy one.
Yankees caps and pinstripes have long travelled beyond baseball, becoming ordinary clothing on New York streets far from the Bronx. MI wants its own name to move through Bandra and Andheri in much the same way, worn to college, dinner or a game of turf football.
“Our conversation with Nike was built around a simple ambition: to take Mumbai Indians beyond the cricket field and make MI a part of performance, pop culture and streetwear,” Devang Bhimjyani, Head, Reliance Sports, told The State of Play.
The range is expected to run beyond replica jerseys into hoodies, sweatshirts, fan T-shirts and sneakers, including limited-edition drops. MI also wants enough price points to keep the broader collection affordable. MI staff wore Nike jackets at the Women’s Premier League auction this week, ahead of the first fan drops during the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Mumbai had appeared in Nike’s story long before the company existed. Phil Knight spent New Year’s Eve in Bombay in 1962 and later recalled in Shoe Dog its crowds, oxen and long-horned cows amid the noise, smells, colours and glare. Six decades later, the company he built is trying to put the city on clothes meant to travel.
The partnership became public on October 22. Six days later, Nike unveiled Vegam Run, named for the Tamil word for speed and the first running shoe it has designed specifically for India.
In less than a week, Nike had returned to Indian cricket and launched a shoe built from an Indian brief. The flurry of activity was unusual for a company that had spent much of the previous decade pulling back from India. “Nike is expected to double, triple down on India in the coming years,” said a person familiar with the company’s ambitions.
Behind that burst is a broader Indian rebuild, much of it conducted through other companies. Nykaa runs Nike’s website and app, franchisees operate its stores, and suppliers are expanding production in Tamil Nadu.
Nike is also preparing a Bengaluru campus that will bring its full-time Indian employees across Nike, Jordan Brand and Converse into one location from FY28. Earlier this month, chief operating officer Venkatesh Alagirisamy met commerce minister Piyush Goyal in Milwaukee to discuss manufacturing, local sourcing and supply-chain development in India.
Nike India itself is a wholesaler with no stores or factories and has lost money for three years.
