Nike and the Cost of a Reputation Standing Still

On September 21, S&P Dow Jones Indices removed Nike from the S&P 100 after almost 18 years in the index. Coverage has focused on the financials, including weakness in China and the unwinding of Nike's direct-to-consumer strategy. Reporters have also pointed to market share lost to running brands like Hoka and On.

Part of the exit reflects the whole category. Every major sportswear stock has trailed the index since 2021 as it shifted toward technology, and the long-established brands have fared worst.

Our Global RepTrak 100 data tells a parallel story about how people see Nike. Nike's reputation remains strong, but much of the lead it held on the topics it was known for has deteriorated as the rest of the field improved. On innovation, the topic most closely tied to Nike's identity, the companies setting the standard increasingly come from outside sportswear.

We haven't found a year-to-year link between Nike's reputation and its share price, so we don't treat either one as the cause of the other. They're parallel stories of a category leader losing relative position.

Nike's Reputation Score held steady while the benchmark rose

When we examined Nike's trajectory in the Global RepTrak 100 this April, we noted their drop in our rankings from 2024 to 2026.

Zooming out on our GRT data, however, points to a story of reputation getting left behind while standing still. Since 2015, Nike's Reputation Score has hardly moved.

It has gone from 75.3 in 2015 to 74.5 in 2026. While both results still sit in the Strong band, the field has continued to improve while Nike's score has remained steady. Over the same period, the Global RepTrak 100 benchmark rose from 71.0 to 74.6.

That overall rise in the GRT 100 has led to Nike losing a 4.3-point lead over benchmark in that time period. And there are signs as to how that's happened.

Nike's lead deteriorated on the drivers that carry the most weight

A Reputation Score measures how people feel about a company: their trust, admiration, esteem, and good feeling toward it. RepTrak separately measures what people think about the company across seven drivers and 23 factors. It also estimates how much each driver matters to overall reputation. Reading those measures alongside the score shows changes the score alone can't.

For Nike, some of the biggest competitive shifts sit in drivers that carry substantial weight globally. Nike's largest historical advantages over the benchmark were on Products & Services, Innovation, Performance, and Leadership. Those four are also the most heavily weighted drivers globally, and Nike's lead on all four has deteriorated:

Together, those four drivers account for about 60% of global driver weight for the Informed General Public across the Global RepTrak 100 in 2026. Products & Services alone carries about a fifth, and Nike's lead there is down to 0.4 points. Most of the change came from the rest of the field. From 2018 to 2026, Nike's Innovation score fell 1.8 points while the benchmark rose 4.2.

The factor scores show the same pattern. Nike's lead on "delivers financial results that are better than expected" went from 4.7 points in 2017 to 0.2 this year. Its lead on "is an innovative company" went from 5.0 to 1.6. People still rate Nike well on these topics. They now rate many other companies almost as highly.

Nike did improve over the decade on Workplace, Conduct, and Citizenship, the areas where it had trailed. Much of that improvement was shared, since the benchmark rose about 3 to 3.5 points on each. Nike still sits just below the benchmark on all three. Its largest gain came on Workplace, which carries the least global weight of the seven drivers. The result is a very different pattern of perceptions behind a headline Reputation Score that changed little.

The reference point for innovation may be moving beyond sportswear

Nike's innovation scores fell further this year than the rest of its results. Its Innovation score dropped 0.9 points more than its other drivers did, the second-largest gap among the 86 companies with year-over-year data. Sportswear more broadly has been losing ground on this driver. Under Armour's small lead over the benchmark in 2021 has turned into a small deficit.

As RepTrak Chief Customer Officer Brad Hect notes:

“Nike is a perfect example of a company that lost by believing the status quo was sufficient, when in reality, it was insufficient.

They have long held a reputation for being innovative—not just versus their competitors, but globally across all categories. Maintaining the status quo, however, is antithetical to innovation, and the RepTrak model shows how their decision to sit still allowed others to catch up. Worse, it happened exactly as the world wanted to see more innovation. They misjudged their lead, and now they risk being left behind.”

The companies rated above Nike point to one explanation. Of the 18 companies ahead of Nike on Innovation this year, all but one are outside sportswear. Eleven are technology or healthcare companies, led by NVIDIA in its first year on the list. One interpretation is that the reference point for what stakeholders consider innovative is broadening beyond category lines.

Innovation's share of global driver weight is slightly higher than it was in 2022, at 13.5%, fourth of the seven drivers. So Nike's lead has narrowed on a topic that has become more important.

The category pattern accounts for only part of Nike's decline. Nike's 2026 scores also fell 2.4 points on "high quality products and services" and 2.5 points on "meets customer needs." Those declines point to how people see Nike's products specifically.

Nike's position isn't fixed

None of this means Nike's standing is permanent. Its scores on Products & Services, Innovation, Performance, and Leadership all remain above the benchmark, and its reputation is still in the Strong band.

Nike's own record shows how far perceptions can move in a decade. Its Workplace score rose 5.5 points since 2017, the largest gain among its seven drivers, and its Conduct score rose 4.2. Those gains came on the areas where Nike had trailed the field. The same measures that show where Nike's advantages have deteriorated also show where its perceptions have strengthened.

Read a steady score against the field

Nike's Reputation Score held steady while its lead on heavily weighted drivers deteriorated. Read a stable score against the field, and track your lead on the drivers that carry the most weight and the ones your brand is known for. Nike's score barely moved while its lead on Innovation fell from 8.2 points to 2.2.

Then benchmark innovation beyond your immediate category. In your next executive review, compare your Innovation score with the companies setting the standard across the wider benchmark, alongside your direct competitors. For a sportswear brand this year, that comparison would bring technology companies into the room.

RepTrak measures reputation this way across stakeholder groups and markets. It pairs a 0–100 Reputation Score for emotional connection with seven drivers and 23 factors that measure the specific perceptions shaping reputation. Weights show how much each driver matters, and annual benchmarks show where a company stands against the field.

If your score has held steady for several years, see how your drivers compare with your benchmark and with the companies setting the standard on the drivers that matter most.