Boardroom’s Nick DePaula breaks down how the Rutgers & Nike partnership came to be after the school parted ways with Adidas.
After a Board of Governors approval vote held Tuesday, the Rutgers athletic department has now officially confirmed its new five-year footwear and apparel deal with Nike, set to begin on July 1, 2025. The deal is technically a partnership agreement with both Nike and BSN Sports, which will manufacture the Nike logo uniforms and apparel for all 24 athletic teams and provide servicing to the school.
“We are excited to partner with Nike and BSN Sports,” said Ryan Pisarri, Rutgers interim athletic director. “Nike is an iconic brand, synonymous with innovation, success, and a championship mentality.”
The Scarlet Knights will return to the Swoosh after initially landing a seven-year school-wide deal with Adidas in 2017 to outfit each athletic team. That deal was set to expire earlier this spring, and the framework of an extension was agreed to in principle in May, according to sources.
However, multiple industry sources also confirmed Adidas opted to terminate the proposed multi-year extension during the first week of October, creating a path for a new apparel outfitter instead. Nike will provide uniforms, footwear, apparel and accessories for more than 730 student-athletes that compete across the schools’ two dozen teams.
While Rutgers basketball jerseys featuring the Swoosh logo are expected to debut next season, the brand limbo that the school found itself balancing to start this season created both confusion and uncharted territory for its footwear on-court.
With recent NIL laws in place, the Rutgers women’s and men’s basketball teams actually touted three featured brand endorsers to start the season. Women’s star Kiyomi McMiller, whose generational handles went viral last week, originally signed a Jordan Brand NIL deal in February 2023 while still in high school. She’s been rotating between the new Air Jordan 39 and the brand’s womens-informed hoops shoe, the Jordan Heir.
Both Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey signed with Nike earlier this fall. As the school sorted out its next brand partner, all three athletes opted to wear their respective preferred Jordan and Nike sneakers to begin the year instead of Adidas sneakers.
With the school’s new Nike deal now official, each player is expected to continue to wear the shoes of their choosing.
One of the only comparable cases in recent years occurred at UCLA, before the NIL era, when the school’s deal with Under Armour was voided amid a pandemic-related force majeure clause standoff. That resulted in Bruins players wearing any shoe of their choosing after 2020 for one season before the basketball program landed a new deal with Jordan Brand.
As I broke down in my Sneaker Game newsletter recently, nearly 20 players across both men’s and women’s college basketball have a NIL shoe deal this season. For stars like Flau’jae Johnson, who signed with Puma at Nike-sponsored LSU, and Cooper Flagg, signed with New Balance at Nike-sponsored Duke, they will still have to play in Nike sneakers for all school games and practices.
While the Rutgers limbo may have been confusing for viewers in real-time, signing a NIL shoe deal still does not override a school’s footwear sponsor. As Rutgers’ negotiations were unfolding in the background through the fall, Harper acknowledged the ongoing footwear dilemma with Boardroom, while discussing his new Red Bull deal last month.
“I sat down with my coach [to talk about] what I’m really comfortable wearing,” he said. “I just put on my feet what I think is really comfortable. I like Kobe 6s, and the new shoe that I’m getting into now is the GT Cuts.”
Harper has also worn various Sabrina Ionescu signature sneakers so far this season, while Bailey has primarily stuck with the Kobe 8, Sabrina 2, and GT Cut 3. Both players are projected top picks in the 2025 NBA Draft.
As Rutgers has touted a revamped roster for both its men’s and women’s basketball teams with more star power, the school’s new Nike deal is now in place, providing clarity for this year’s rosters. Going forward, the school will have five years of a Nike partnership to come in 2025 and an additional five-year extension clause that would extend the school-wide deal beyond 2030.
“Me and Ace, we don’t really pay attention to stuff like that, and we’re just focused on getting better every day,” added Harper. “It’s never a distraction in our locker room, and we don’t really care about that stuff. We just all want to win.”
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