Nike Jordan and Converse Launch Unified Innovation Engine for Athletes

Innovation enters a new era at Nike as three brand powerhouses fuse creative forces for peak performance.

Nike, has announced a historic unification of its Innovation, Design, and Product teams across Nike, Jordan Brand, and Converse into a single, athlete-focused creation engine called “NIKE, Sport Offense” an initiative engineered to speed up product innovation, accelerate growth, and guarantee that every new release is tailored to athlete needs and insight.

Breaking Down Silos for Game-Changing Collaboration

The Sport Offense strategy marks a fundamental restructuring of Nike’s creative and technical brain trusts. This move is designed to foster deeper collaboration, making it easier for teams to share insights, data, technology, and manufacturing expertise as innovations move from the lab to the finished product.

Phil McCartney, Chief Innovation, Design and Product Officer at NIKE, said:
“Our north star is a homage to our co-founder, Bill Bowerman, and a challenge Kobe Bryant put to all of us: ‘Create epic s— and make athletes better.’ Everything begins and ends with the athlete’s voice their goals, their struggles, their drive. By uniting our creation organization across Nike, Jordan and Converse, we’re accelerating progress and fully leveraging our strengths to deliver epic products that make athletes better. It’s a new day in Innovation, Design and Product at Nike.”

This new structure also positions the brands to quickly respond to athlete feedback decreasing time from ideation to release and prioritizing science-led, athlete-tested performance upgrades at every step.

Four Platforms Poised to Disrupt Sport and Style

Nike kicked off the new era with four major innovation pillars:

• Aero-FIT: A pinnacle cooling technology delivering double the airflow of any previous Nike athletic apparel. Designed to keep athletes at peak performance in extreme conditions and made with advanced chemical-recycled textile waste for sustainability.

• Nike Mind: Over a decade in the making, this neuroscience-based footwear includes Mind 001 (mule) and Mind 002 (sneaker), built with 22 independent foam nodes per shoe to stimulate key sensory areas and lock in focus before or after competition. Launched through the newly established Mind Science Department.

• Project Amplify: The world’s first powered footwear system, combining a lightweight motor and carbon fiber-plated shoe to help everyday athletes run faster and farther with less effort like an “electric bike for your feet”.

• Therma-FIT Air Milano: An outerwear breakthrough allowing athletes to shift from hoodie-light warmth to puffer-jacket insulation by inflating or deflating air within jacket baffles. Set to debut with Team USA at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games.

Powered by Science, United by Purpose

Much of this creative energy is rooted in the Nike Sport Research Lab (NSRL), part of the LeBron James Innovation Center, which houses the world’s largest motion capture system and teams of designers, bioengineers, and neuroscientists. Across the 1-million-square-foot Serena Williams Building, designers and product teams unite to iterate quickly and deploy disruptive technologies straight to athletes and consumers.

Phil McCartney also said:
“We are a team of dreamers, designers and creators with a responsibility to make athlete dreams real. We focus on the athlete’s unique relationship with their sport, creating solutions they never knew they needed and can’t live without. We imagine and innovate always starting with athletes, staying grounded in sport, and pushing what’s possible in innovation, design and product.”

The Next Era of Athlete-Led Design

With nearly 1,000 designers involved and with best-in-class manufacturing partners and research facilities Nike, Jordan Brand, and Converse are building a unified ecosystem that promises not only faster innovation, but also more personalized and impactful advancements for athletes of every level.

The newly launched Sport Offense is positioned to push boundaries, delivering the kind of performance products that, as Nike leadership notes, “wows, resonates, and makes people feel something.” Expect everything from new materials to next-gen footwear and apparel drops to reflect this intense focus on listening to and serving athletes first.