In 2018, Roger Federer left Nike after 20 years and bought into a small Swiss shoe company: On. Kylian Mbappé just did the same thing.

Mbappé’s relationship with Nike dated back to 2006, when he was 8 years old. Now he is the first On soccer player, taking a global ambassador role and equity in the company.

Federer invested in 2019 as part of an endorsement agreement following his split with Nike, and his roughly 3% stake was valued at more than $300M at the company's IPO in 2021.

Forbes now estimates he owns roughly 2.5% of the company, a stake that first drove his wealth to billionaire status. His career prize money was around $130M.

Mbappé will work directly with On's product teams, and they plan to launch the first line of boots in 2027, with Thierry Henry as director of football.

A source told CNBC that Nike felt it had benefited from the prime years of his career when the contract ended in July, and chose to spend its endorsement money elsewhere. Nike's stock is down about 30% year to date.

Mbappé and Federer made a real impact and felt their success at Nike, but still decided to leave for On. The equity makes the difference, and more athletes are realizing that if they are powering a company’s growth, they should own a piece of it.

ESPN fired Ryan Clark in July. In the 10 weeks since, his company Pivot25 signed Netflix, partnered with NFL Films, and brought in former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as an investor.

Clark co-founded Pivot25 in 2025 with 13-time Emmy-winning producer Alicia Zubikowski. The company sits behind The Pivot podcast, which Clark hosts with Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder.

Schultz reportedly texted Clark after ESPN ended his 11-year run and pushed him to think bigger than a single YouTube show. Since then, The Pivot started releasing new episodes on Netflix twice a week, The Pivot Sports with Ryan Clark debuted on YouTube (produced with NFL Films), and Schultz joined as an investor.

Ownership has driven this group since day 1: Taylor and Crowder left I AM ATHLETE in 2022 to launch The Pivot with Clark. Taylor explained the split at the time: "There was talk of revenue sharing but not equity, and you have to know there's a difference there." The channel has 1.4M+ YouTube subscribers and 480M+ views.

One athlete-run league signed Adidas as its official uniform and performance apparel partner, another athlete-run company signed as USA Fencing’s official media partner…

Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 women's league founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, signed a multiyear deal making Adidas its official uniform and performance apparel partner. Adidas replaces Under Armour, whose contract expired this year, and will also outfit the league's youth camps, clinics and community programming while expanding licensed merchandise like authentic jerseys, starting with the 2027 season.

The deal lands a month after Unrivaled closed a $100M+ Series C led by Ten Pillars Sports Fund at a $650M valuation, nearly double the $340M valuation from the previous September. Most players hold equity in the league, so every new commercial deal adds value to a company they partly own.

Togethxr, co-founded in 2021 by Alex Morgan, Sue Bird, Simone Manuel, Chloe Kim and media veteran Jessica Robertson, signed a 2-year deal as USA Fencing's Official Media Partner, its first partnership with a national governing body. The company gets access to athletes, teams and competitions to produce documentary-style and social content on the road to the LA Olympics, where the U.S. women's foil program enters as a medal favorite.

Chris Paul has joined Owl Ventures as a venture partner. Owl is the largest venture capital firm in the world focused on education and workforce companies. It has $2.2B in committed capital and more than 100 investments, and its portfolio companies reach more than 700M users. Paul will support founders and bring strategic partners to those companies.

This role adds to a portfolio Paul spent years organizing. In August 2025, he moved his businesses into The Chris Paul Collective, a holding company run by president David Schwab. It holds his stakes in Angel City FC, the Rajasthan Royals, WatchBox, The Soccer Tournament, and Hyperice, which was valued at $850M in 2022. It also includes Ohh Dip!!! Entertainment, the production company he started with his brother CJ, and snack brand Good Eat'n.

Education has been part of that work for years. Paul co-created a Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports course at several HBCUs with Harvard professor Anita Elberse, and he runs Club 61, a youth leadership program built around financial literacy.

Paul told Forbes in 2024 that players have always been the talent and rarely the owners, and this role is putting that perspective to work.