Last week, Lululemon signed Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton as the brand’s newest athlete ambassador. What does a competitive race car driver have in common with a brand synonymous with women’s yoga pants?
Hamilton is the latest in a line of buzzed-about male athletes to take up an ambassadorship with a sportswear brand more commonly known for athleisure — and, in turn, associated with women.
As incumbents like Nike and Adidas execute big women’s pushes, the athleisure brands that began stealing that exact market share years ago are now coming for the boys. It’s an obvious play: these brands’ bottom lines will benefit from capturing more of the men’s market share, which, to date, has gone underpenetrated. “We’re growing away from a yoga brand for her, so in the US the opportunity is to continue to drive awareness as a brand for him,” Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald said at global retail conference NRF in January. (Alo and Lululemon declined to comment for this article.)
“These athleisure brands suffer from a general perception that they are ‘yoga pants’ brands ‘for women’,” says Madeline Hill, writer of sports gossip newsletter Impersonal Foul. “Whether or not the perception is accurate is irrelevant — that’s the perception.”
Hamilton himself illustrated this (prior) lack of awareness when announcing his ambassadorship. “I didn’t actually know they were doing men’s,” the F1 driver told GQ while discussing his new role. “Obviously, there were women that I’d met who would just be raving about Lululemon — I was like, ‘Uh, I can’t wear the leggings!’”
Brands are banking on athlete ambassadors to speed up this shift in perception and drive growth. Lululemon also nabbed tennis player Frances Tiafoe from Nike once Tiafoe’s deal was up. Alo, meanwhile, has been collecting its own roster of macho athletes, from the NBA to the NFL. Last year, the brand enlisted NBA player Jimmy Butler to launch its first sneaker, the Recovery Mode. Later in 2024, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow helped Alo to launch its second sneaker, the Alo Runner. Both the faces of the shoes — and the footwear themselves — are part of the brand’s bid to reach beyond the athleisure aesthetic it’s famous for. In January, the brand partnered with San Antonio Spurs power forward Jeremy Sochan (who attended Pharrell Williams’s first Louis Vuitton show) on a campaign tied to the NBA Paris Games. And Skims, which just inked a major deal with Nike to launch sub-brand NikeSkims, recently ran underwear ads starring Canadian basketball player Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Brazilian footballer Neymar Jr.
These athletes are no small get. They have a plethora of options, and would traditionally have been likely to go for a deal with a typical performance wear brand like Nike, Adidas, Under Armour or On, as opposed to an athleisure player. But norms are changing.
“These partnerships signal versatility, a modern approach to training and a way to stand out in a market saturated with the same big-name sponsors,” says Nikita Walia, strategy director at brand and venture studio Unnamed. Hill agrees, and bets that these deals can do more for an athlete’s image than an expected incumbent. “There is a very concerted effort to shift the image management of athletes to fit changing cultural values,” says Hill, attributing this to a range of factors: the rise in popularity of women’s sports (the Caitlin Clark effect) and fashion’s increasing tie-up with pro sports.
After all, it’s not just sports-obsessed men that are eyeing these athletes. Though the male ambassadors for typically womenswear brands might seem like a strategy to lock in a new market, it also represents the diversification of sports audiences more broadly, says Alice Crossley, senior foresight analyst at strategic foresight consultancy The Future Laboratory. “Women are watching men’s sports more than ever and brands are finally shaking off gender-stereotyped campaigns,” she says. “Women and men can be influenced and buy into a brand more if one of the best athletes of all time is wearing its products.”
So what’s changed for the athletes signing the deals to wear these products — and is this the key to athleisure’s men’s unlock?
Off the court
In 2025, the definition of an athlete is fast evolving, experts agree. “It’s no longer just about peak performance; it’s about longevity, recovery and mental well-being,” Walia says. “Athleisure brands are speaking that language better than the legacy sports brands, and athletes are responding.”
These athletes are also occupying spaces beyond athletics, showing up in the front row at fashion weeks and branching out into the film and music industries. (Hamilton is co-producing Brad Pitt’s forthcoming Formula One movie; Butler has a country music album in the works.)
Operating publicly in spaces outside of stadiums — and dressing accordingly — is a major shift on the part of the athletes, says Walia. “Five years ago, signing with an athleisure brand might have looked like a step down,” she acknowledges. “Now, it’s a flex. It signals influence beyond sports — fashion, culture, business. It’s about owning your off-the-court presence as much as your on-the-court performance.”
Today, athletes are curating their personal brands, and consumers view them as not just athletes, but “lifestyle icons”, Walia says. Brands like Lululemon and Alo offer something different: a lifestyle beyond the locker room. “The audience isn’t just guys looking for gym gear — it’s fashion-forward men who care about aesthetics as much as performance,” she says. It may not even be a sports fanatic at all. Because these men are so entrenched in popular culture, their reach goes beyond sports with a capital S. The lines of culture and sports have blurred, Crossley says. “Lewis Hamilton’s partnership with Lululemon could reach someone really into veganism or his red carpet looks, as much as F1,” she says.
There’s also value for athletes in partnering with a smaller, less-expected brand. “A lot of athletes would rather be one of the three most important athletes tied to a smaller brand than the 27th most important athlete at a legacy brand,” Hill agrees. Plus, because these brands are intent on competing with established players in performance, they’re willing to give athletes more creative control, adds Walia.
Shifting vibes
The athlete’s growing presence beyond their game, match or race is what’s offering these athleisure brands a way into the male athlete sphere in a way that would have been difficult even just five years ago. These brands are able to tap their full lifestyle, not just their work in sport.
This isn’t to say that these brands aren’t going for performance. On the contrary, they’re looking to move beyond their reputation as ‘women’s brands’ and establish themselves as performance-first players, Walia says. Last year, Alo launched its first two pairs of running shoes, while Lululemon debuted its men’s footwear line. At Lululemon, Hamilton will be working closely with the brand’s research and innovation and design and development teams, per the release, promising quality performance offerings in the athletic and lifestyle ranges.
But this doesn’t mean these menswear up-and-comers will be shooting for a uniform deal anytime soon. “Right now, these brands thrive in the margins — training, travel, recovery,” Walia says. “If they step into game-day performance wear, it’ll be because they’ve innovated something better, not just to compete head-on with Nike and Adidas.”
Hill doesn’t expect this to happen in a hurry. “A lot of agents, sports leagues, teams and brands have been working together now very closely for decades,” she says, noting the tight-knit world of legacy sports institutions, despite the industry’s fast-broadening scope. “The legacy brands have too much money, power and political clout in pro sports to ever lose hold of the rights to actual jerseys and uniforms.”
And athleisure brands don’t need this niche. These days, athletes are generating as much buzz off the court as on. A tunnel walk shot, off-duty look or buyable collection is as — if not more — valuable for an Alo or a Lululemon than a branded uniform. “Athleisure is no longer an afterthought in the performance world,” Walia says. “It’s setting the pace.”
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