Nike’s Next Headache

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Happy Monday, Future Party. Pete Davidson and Colin Jost finally made good on their ambitions of turning their decommissioned Staten Island ferry into a comedy venue after hosting a free stand-up show last Thursday. While the show took place docked at Pier 17 in Lower Manhattan, the real hope is that the ferry becomes a touring venue in the coming years. Maybe it’ll even become famous as a free-floating comedy oasis for hardened merchant seamen all across the Eastern Seaboard. Nothing would be funnier than receiving an invite to a stand-up show as a pair of coordinates somewhere off the coast of Rhode Island.

French soccer superstar Kylian Mbappé is leaving Nike — his footwear home since he was a teenager — to launch Swiss brand On’s new soccer division.

Why It Hits: Nike and Adidas have had a stranglehold on the sports-footwear industry for decades, with soccer remaining an almost unbreakable fortress. But buzzy new brands like Hoka and On (which gained ground in running shoes) and resurging legacy labels like New Balance and Reebok are gaining enough traction to potentially break up the duopoly. That could make for some exciting competition.

Behind The Kicks: Mbappé sent shockwaves through the soccer world with his signature-shoe switch.

Additionally, legendary soccer manager Thierry Henry — who had stints at Arsenal, Barcelona, and France’s national team — has become On’s Director of Football, where he’ll “oversee strategic growth, athlete relationships, and product direction.”

Last Goal: With Mbappé’s move, all eyes are now on Nike to see how it pivots. The company has been going through kind of a rough patch lately, even as new CEO Elliott Hill works to rebuild the brand and get sales moving again. Still, the company’s narrative hasn’t fully recovered, and it even fell off the S&P 100 — something that didn’t seem possible a decade ago.

Hill has publicly doubled down on soccer since the explosive popularity of this year’s World Cup. Losing Mbappé is a major setback to that ambition… but now the brand has an opportunity to put Norwegian star Erling Haaland, its second most-famous soccer athlete, front and center.

Next Match: Prepare for Nike to build an entirely new line around Haaland that not only includes some groundbreaking tech but also leans into his high-fashion style. That may be one reason Nike added LVMH’s Alexandre Arnault to its board.

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Napster — yes, the controversial music-sharing service — has rebranded as an AI platform focused on education in the Gulf region.

The Big Picture: It’s a strange era, with seemingly every brand pivoting its operations to AI. The most interesting example may be shoe brand Allbirds becoming a compute company called Smartbird. With so much investable capital floating around, more brands are realizing that a unique AI pitch can put some fresh funds in the bank… and maybe give them another shot at relevancy.

Behind The Code: Napster used to copy and paste songs. Now, it wants to copy and paste teachers.

Final Lesson: Napster has been on a corporate rollercoaster since its founding in 1999. After reshaping the music industry, for better or worse, it shut down just two years later thanks to several costly legal losses. From there, it was reborn as a music streamer before quietly becoming an AI platform last year, when Florida-based tech company Infinite Reality purchased it.

Samuel Huber, Napster’s new CEO for the Middle East and Africa, says the company’s ethos remains the same: “Twenty-five years ago, [Napster] was about music and how music should be owned by people, not the gatekeepers. And now this is the same fight, the same ethos, but it’s about data and intelligence.”

Talk about some incredible spin.

The Future: Will Napster ever realize its education dreams? Who knows… but expect the new startup-survival plan to involve a hard pivot to niche AI. That could give companies enough juice to become real acquisition targets… again.

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47.9% of you voted Amazon in Friday’s poll: When it comes to shopping, which do you prefer?

“Walmart is one of the main reasons I started shopping online. I’ll do a lot to avoid going there. The sheer size of the store is exhausting and overwhelming, and it’s always crowded with rude people. It’s much nicer to sit on my couch and shop, even if it costs a little more — which it usually doesn’t.”

“Amazon is totally unreliable now and can’t even live up to its delivery promises. It’s always late, and they still misdeliver after 20 years in the same house.”

“Neither of them treat their essential workers well.”

“Got to find an alternative to both. 🤬🤬”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🤝 Paramount and California AG Rob Bonta are reportedly in advanced settlement talks over the former’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.

👔 Disney has hired former Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand as its first-ever chief technology officer.

🎥 Cosm is launching a multi-year exhibition pact with Universal Pictures with updated screenings of Shrek.

👀 Anthropic announced that its Claude chatbot is helping develop the next version of its own model. Wild.

🤖 California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to convene third-party groups to draft AI safety protocols and potentially require companies to create a “kill switch” for frontier models.

✈️ Joby Aviation has conducted the first-ever cross-country autonomous flight using a retrofitted Cessna plane.

👟 Nike has inked a multi-year deal to outfit the University of Miami, starting next July.

📈 A study by Acquired found that the highest-returning stock of the last 45 years isn’t a tech giant — it’s Home Depot.

🏀 The NY Knicks had to pause individual ticket sales after an internal glitch sent prices soaring to over $1,200 to see them face off against LeBron James.