Nike’s attempted recovery under new president and CEO Elliott Hill took another small but meaningful step forward, as the company beat Wall Street expectations while still grappling with a series of tariff- and inventory-related issues. 

Oregon-based Nike said it generated $11.1 billion in revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter, down 12% from the comparable period last year. Net income of $211 million also plunged 86% from last year’s fourth quarter. Both of those drops, however, were smaller than analyst projections, suggesting that Nike may have already hit the low point in its transition. 

To that end, Nike EVP and CFO Matthew Friend said the company “expects the headwinds to moderate from here.” For the full year, revenue was down 10% to $46.3 billion, and net income fell 44% to $3.2 billion.

The latest results, extending initial momentum seen in the early spring, arrived as Hill is seeking to retool the company. Complicating that effort, however, has been a frequently changing tariff and geopolitical strategy under U.S. President Donald Trump. The company’s heavy manufacturing presence in countries such as Vietnam and China makes it particularly exposed to such tariffs. 

“The results we’re reporting today are not up to the Nike standard, but as we said 90 days ago, the work we’re doing to reposition the business is having an impact,” Hill said late Thursday in an earnings call with analysts. “From here, we expect our business results to improve.”

Immediate Reaction

Nike shares fell more than 2% in choppy after-hours trading late Thursday before rebounding, showing investors were still discerning the company’s prospects. More broadly, the stock has dropped 15% this year.

Still, the quarterly report gave some support to Wall Street’s hopes that Nike was gaining some footing. The company continues to face a difficult combination of issues that also includes price concerns among consumers, heightened competition among rival brands, and excess inventory across multiple sales channels. Nike is projecting a mid-single-digit percentage decline in revenue for the first quarter of its fiscal 2026. 

“I am confident in our ability to navigate through this current dynamic and uncertain environment by focusing on what we can control,” Friend said.

Among Nike’s latest restructuring moves is the return to a “sport offense” strategy in which the business will be organized around individual sports as opposed to separate genders. The move reverses much of a prior reorganization under former president and CEO John Donahoe. 

Elsewhere, Nike had mixed results Thursday in the running world as its “moon shot” bid to have Faith Kipyegon run the first women’s mile in less than four minutes fell short, but still resulted in the fastest time ever run by a woman.

Defying significant odds, the Rays are squarely in playoff contention, and that’s creating some new concern about what will happen with the team in October.

Talks between the team and league officials have begun about logistical scenarios for potential Rays playoff games. Initially reported by The Athletic, the core issue is that Tampa’s George M. Steinbrenner Field, the Rays’ temporary home for 2025 while Tropicana Field is renovated after substantial hurricane damage last fall, is not nearly large enough for normal playoff operations. 

Seating about 10,000 fans, the limited capacity of the spring training home of the Yankees runs into stark contrast with MLB’s League Championship Series and World Series—playoffs rounds that have game operations managed at the league level instead of by individual teams. Within those league requirements are roughly 7,500 seats per World Series game set aside for a variety of non-fan needs such as players, visiting teams, broadcast partners, sponsors, media, and other groups. 

Also at issue is player compensation during the postseason, which is derived from gate receipts of guaranteed postseason games and is largely a function of the ballpark capacities of the participating teams. That element almost certainly will bring the MLB Players Association into the discussion.  

That could result in the Rays being moved temporarily to a larger venue should the team advance beyond the Division Series. Such a move to a neutral site, however, also invites issues such as the loss of a home field advantage that the team would have earned. Additional factors to be considered are heightened travel costs of playing additional games away from Steinbrenner Field and the complexities of staging a postseason-level television broadcast at a minor league venue not designed for that.

Surprising Success

After a 4–0 Thursday win against the Royals, Tampa Bay was just half a game behind the Yankees in the American League East division and the top wild-card team. A postseason probability of less than 38% at the start of the season has roughly doubled to more than 78% as the Rays have been MLB’s best team since early May. MLB front-loaded the Rays’ home schedule to have fewer games there in the peak Florida summer heat, and the Rays have gone 27–23 at Steinbrenner Field so far, following an 11–18 start with a 16–5 run. 

The ongoing situation in Tampa could also inform how MLB handles the A’s should they become a playoff team while still playing temporarily in Sacramento, as a new Las Vegas ballpark is built. 

The playoff consideration also arrives as Rays owner Stu Sternberg has entered into exclusive negotiations for a $1.7 billion deal to sell the club to a group led by Jacksonville developer Patrick Zalupski.

Friday was supposed to be one of the WNBA’s marquee matchups of the year: the first professional game between Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers. But a groin injury to Clark may delay the festivities.

Clark has been ruled out for the Indiana Fever’s home game Thursday against the Connecticut Sun. It’s unclear whether she will miss Friday’s game against Bueckers and the Dallas Wings—a road game on the second night of a back-to-back. Fever head coach Stephanie White said Clark is “day-to-day.”

The uncertainty around Clark’s availability has caused a drop in ticket prices for Friday’s game, which the Wings moved to the American Airlines Center, home of the NBA’s Mavericks. The arena has a capacity of about 20,000, more than three times that of College Park Center, the Wings’ usual home arena located in Arlington.

Based on SeatGeek, the “get-in” ticket price is down to $115 on Thursday afternoon, down 40% from $190 on Thursday morning, hours before the Fever announced Clark’s injury.

However, that number is still about four times more expensive than the get-in price for the Wings’ next home game against the Washington Mystics on Saturday.

The Chicago Sky moved their game against the Fever on June 7 to the United Center and were still able to draw a sellout crowd of 19,496 despite Clark not playing—though the ticket prices dropped about 70% after news of Clark’s quad injury was announced.

Despite the ticket price drop, the game has the potential to be Ion’s most-watched telecast of the season even without Clark. That title is currently held by the Fever vs. Sun game on May 30 that drew 851,000 viewers—and Clark missed the game with a quad injury. Bueckers’s WNBA debut aired on Ion and drew 612,000 viewers, also one of the network’s most-watched games this year.

It’s a welcome sign for Ion’s parent company, Scripps Sports, a few weeks after announcing a new, multiyear media deal with the WNBA. 

Stars Align in Big D

Friday’s game will still cap off a special sports week in Dallas, regardless of whether Clark plays. Two days after the Mavericks selected Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick, the Wings will play their first game at the American Airlines Center.

The Wings are expected to move from Arlington to Dallas, though their original move to Memorial Auditorium is being delayed from 2026 to 2027. According to WFAA-TV Dallas, the Wings could wind up playing one season at American Airlines Center in 2026.