In the highly competitive sportswear industry, Nike holds a commanding lead—but its lead is narrowing. Adidas, the number two player, just reported double-digit growth across all segments and markets in the fourth quarter of 2025, reaching $29 billion (€24.8 billion) in annual sales.

Nike, on the other hand, just announced flat third-quarter sales of $11 billion, down 3% in constant currency, and is guiding to a low-single-digit decline for the full year after generating $46.3 billion in 2025, following a 10% drop. 

Nike is particularly challenged in its international markets. In North America, Nike is growing—up 5% through the third quarter, where it generates about 45% of sales. But elsewhere, it’s fading. In the EMEA, Nike’s second-largest market, revenue was down 2% constant currency over the last nine months. Asia Pacific/Latin America dropped 11%, and China was off 12%. Its fall in China—once its primary growth engine—is particularly painful. The company warns sales there could drop by as much as 20% in the fourth quarter. 

As Nike struggles to reverse its downward slide, its corporate reputation has been falling alongside. RepTrak’s just-released 2026 reputation ranking of the world’s top 100 brands showed Nike fell from number 21 among the world’s most respected brands in 2024 to number 50 today. On the other hand, Adidas has soared to number two on that list, behind only Lego. In 2024, Adidas was just slightly ahead of Nike at number 16.

RepTrak’s report is based on 230,000 consumer surveys conducted by Dynata across 14 major economies at the end of the year. Respondents must not only be aware of the company but have an informed opinion about it. Seven drivers of reputation are measured—Products & Services, Performance, Innovation, Leadership, Conduct, Citizenship and Workplace. To qualify for the study, a company must have global revenues about $2 billion and global familiarity above 20% across the 14 countries measured. 

“To rise from where Adidas was three years ago to number two is phenomenal. It’s a real contender for number one—it wouldn’t surprise me if Adidas were able to further raise the bar next year,” shared Stephen Hahn, RepTrak’s chief reputation and strategy officer.

And he would know—he’s spent more than a decade tracking how global brands rise, fall and earn their place in consumers’ hearts and minds.

Adidas Breaks Out Through Community Engagement

Adidas’ dramatic rise in corporate reputation goes far beyond the products it brings to market, though outstanding performance there certainly helped. 

The company called out the Adizero footwear family as driving more than 30% growth in the running category during 2025 and Jefferies noted that Adidas Terrex and Ultrarun models were in high demand at the end of last year. Powerful collaborations with Pharrell Williams, Oasis and Bad Bunny also fueled growth in its lifestyle business, up 12% during 2025. 

Hahn credits Adidas’s remarkable reputation surge to what he calls the “multiplayer experience,” where the company provides the core brand narrative that is then shaped, amplified and validated across a network of stakeholders, including consumers, employees, collaborators and other cultural participants. 

Adidas’ gains were concentrated on three key factors tied to its behavior as a global corporate citizen: conducting business in an ethical and fair manner, supporting employees in a fair, ethical and inclusive way and demonstrating responsible citizenship. These are foundational in RepTrak’s model and central to how stakeholders judge a company’s character. 

Leadership Change

Adidas’ momentum across these and other drivers of reputation followed a leadership change. In 2023, CEO Kasper Rørsted unexpectedly stepped down before his contract expired to be replaced by former Puma leader Bjørn Gulden, who returned to the company he served for seven years in the 1990s. 

Rørsted’s exit—announced by mutual agreement before the Kanye West/Ye antisemitism scandal broke—was explained as a strategic “restart” after several challenging years. 

Upon his arrival, Gulden’s first priority was to stabilize the business financially and reputationally after the fallout, both of which have been accomplished.

Rising Cultural Currency

Its Roblox partnership, launched in December 2023, gave Adidas more cultural currency among next-generation consumers. On the platform, users can dress their digital avatars in Adidas’ three-striped design, including limited edition UCG designs by top Roblox creator Rush Bogin, known as Rush X.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, Adidas Samba and Gazelle sneakers were adopted as a streetwear favorite across the globe. RepTrak noted that this trend wasn’t propelled through brand-controlled advertising campaigns, but by organic creator content spreading virally across social platforms.

Community Connection

By RepTrak’s accounting, Adidas climbed to number two in its global reputation ranking through a multiplayer strategy that thrives through an independent stakeholder network—people who feel a deep connection to the brand, not just as customers but as part of the brand’s story. 

“Today, a company can shape the narrative, but they can’t control it,” Hahn explained. “If a brand doesn’t have earned media working for it, you’re actually having a monologue, not a dialogue with the stakeholders that matter. As a company, you provide input, guidance and counsel, but you can’t directly control the narrative.”

Nike Still Has Clout, But It’s Slipping 

Hahn is quick to point out that Nike still has a strong global reputation. “Being ranked 50th in the world today is still pretty good, so it’s not devastating news,” he said. “But as Adidas has gone up, Nike has gone down—and it’s not a coincidence.”

He describes Nike’s fall as a “referendum” on the many steps and missteps it has made over the past three years, most of them under previous CEO John Donahue, until current CEO Elliott Hill was brought out of retirement to course correct in October 2024. 

Given the parallels to Adidas and its leadership change, Nike may have another two-to-three years ahead for the business and reputation to recover. But the path forward is treacherous. The decision to pull back from wholesale retail to concentrate on DTC engagement backfired, contributing to a decline in its Products & Services score in 2023. 

“To be a highly resonant brand, you have to foster what I call ‘participation,’ where customers don’t just buy your product or services but want to be part of the experience,” Hahn explained. “By primarily limiting Nike to direct-to-consumer, it missed a big part of its channel of opportunity. You’re actually restricting your success—narrowing the stakeholder ecosystem.”

Then, in 2024, when Nike laid off 1,600 staff members, its Conduct and Workplace scores took a dive. The company also lost its ambassador advantage. RepTrak’s ambassador score measures the number of people willing to actively advocate for the brand. Nike’s ambassador score fall signaled a weakening of word-of-mouth and a loss of meaningful connection within its core community.  

Adidas Is The “We” Brand While Nike Is About “Me”

It’s this erosion of community connection more than anything else that is weighing on Nike’s reputation score, while lifting Adidas. Hahn captures the distinction succinctly: “Adidas is about ‘we,’ while Nike is about ‘me.’” 

He continues, “Adidas has achieved a sense of shared purpose and mission within a community of like-minded people—that’s the multiplayer strategy that differentiates it from Nike. One can argue Nike is more self-serving, more about the athlete and winning, about me and my success. But the athlete plays on a team sport, so it’s hard to translate that ‘we’ feeling.”

Hahn sees the “we vs. me” divide becoming more impactful as AI is increasingly used not just to recommend products to buy, but as a way stakeholders form opinions about a company. 

“AI comes to the table with an opinion and a judgment so when you search for something related to Nike, it is affected by what people have said and experienced in the past,” he explained. “If you are asking AI to recommend the coolest brand of soccer cleats, it’s going to be influenced by the news cycle and favor a brand like Adidas because people are saying nice things about Adidas—having a multiplayer conversation. AI has effectively become a stakeholder with an opinion that is affecting other people.”

Looking ahead, Hahn predicts the rivalry between the two brands will command international attention at this year’s World Cup, pitting Nike against Adidas on one of the world’s biggest stages, with the stakes high for both brands’ business and reputations.

 “You’re going to see Adidas play out versus Nike all the time,” he said. “And if there was World Cup for reputation today, Adidas would win the game two to zero over Nike, because it’s better positioned further along in terms of reputation management.”