Nike: basketball and football merge via Kylian Mbappé and LeBron James collaboration

Nike is launching a collection of footwear and lifestyle clothing through a collaboration between Kylian Mbappé (FRA, Paris Saint-Germain) and LeBron James (USA, Los Angeles Lakers), according to the American equipment manufacturer on 06/01/2021. These products will be marketed from 09/01/2021.

The collection features two pairs of shoes: a pair of "Mercurial Superfly Mbappé Chosen 2" football boots and a pair of "LeBron 18 Chosen 2" basketball sneakers - the term "chosen" being inspired by one of the nicknames of the four-time NBA champion, the "chosen one". Each of these pairs of shoes, which merge football and basketball, show the names of the two sports stars in the form of an ambigram featuring the names "LeBron" and "Kylian".

As a teaser for this collaboration, Nike orchestrated a communication campaign on Instagram in which the two athletes exchanged profile pictures on their personal accounts for 48 hours. LeBron James (148.6 million fans on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and Kylian Mbappé (54.8 million fans) met for the first time in December 2019.

This is not the first…