On, the beloved shoe for runners and soccer parents, bets on tennis as its next winner

Late Tuesday night at New York’s Arthur Ashe Stadium, 20-year-old Ben Shelton beat Frances Tiafoe to become the youngest American to reach a U.S. Open semifinal since Andy Roddick in 2003. And he did it wearing Roger Federer’s shoes. Sort of.

Back in March, Shelton joined defending U.S. Open champ Iga Swiatek to become a brand ambassador for the cult athletic shoe brand On.

These two, along with the legendary Federer, are helping On reach its goals to push beyond its success in running. The brand sees tennis as an underestimated and under-invested sport when it comes to performance footwear, and a potential key to boost its overall cultural footprint in the United States.

If the On brand were a tennis player, its last few years could only be described as a straight-set win, six-love. Earlier this month, in its latest earnings report, the Zurich-based company hit its sixth consecutive quarter of record growth, with sales up more than 52% to more than $500 million. It may have been born in Europe, but its future success hinges on this side of the ocean, and the Americas region has become On’s biggest market and growth-driver, with sales up 60% in the second quarter, making up nearly 67% of the company’s total net sales. On co-CEO Marc Maurer says that’s why the company chose to go public with its IPO in the U.S. back in 2021. “We deliberately decided to do it in the U.S.,” Maurer says, “because it’s the biggest and the most important market to us, and that really helped us to ignite the brand much more, and we saw a very big impact.”

Maurer credits the brand’s success to its mission of using performance footwear and apparel to inspire people to get out and moving. Founded in 2010, it began with a devoted following among Swiss trail runners thanks to its CloudTec soles, which quickly caught on with city dwellers as well. That’s where the shoes caught the eye of tennis legend Roger Federer. “My wife and seemingly everyone else on the streets of Zurich were wearing On, so I picked up a pair myself and was instantly impressed by how comfortable they were,” says Federer.

He called up the founders and invited them out to dinner. “At the time, I was between sponsorships and toying with the idea of creating my own shoe line. But I was blown away by the On founders and how they were building something completely new and different. I knew I wanted to be part of that. In 2019, I officially joined the company as a co-entrepreneur.”

Its roots are in running, but over the past year or so, On has been positioning itself as the next great tennis brand, and views the sport as the key to maintaining its impressive win streak.

Maurer says tennis was the next logical choice not only because one of the best to ever play the game happened to have an employee office badge, but because tennis style seamlessly blends between performance, style, and casual athletic fashion more than any other sport. Adidas’ iconic Stan Smith model is a prime example. Combine that with the tidy collared shirts and warm-ups common to tennis, and it complements the style goals On has had from the very start, in creating functional, performance-based gear that is as stylish on the street as it is in sport. 

“This is a similar story to when On started in 2010, where there was extremely little innovation on the running side for roughly 20 years,” says Maurer. “We feel we were one of the first brands to start to really drive this innovation, and you had Hoka at roughly the same time, then Nike released the Vaporfly and so on. But this was all post-2013, 2014. And in tennis, we feel we are in a similar position right now, where there has been very little innovation, and we think it’s a big market, not just on the performance side, but also how we can impact your all-day. We definitely feel there’s an opportunity, and we want to attack it with the best.”

Britt Olsen, On’s general manager of Americas, says that the opportunity in tennis is massive. “I can’t tell you how many times I’m sitting with some of the biggest retailers in the country, and nobody can tell me where there has been innovation in tennis,” she says. “Here we have one of the greatest tennis players of all-time on our side, we have up-and-coming talent that want to be a part of what we’re building, and there is a market there for innovation. So it makes perfect sense.”

To that end, On will be its hyping tennis line, called the Roger Collection, as the 2023 U.S. Open kicks off, which follows close on the heels of the brand opening its second New York store, this time in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, marking its fourth retail location in the U.S. and its 23rd store globally, with future openings planned for Miami, Chicago, Austin, and Portland, Oregon. 

Federer, who won five U.S. Open titles over his career, sees a lot of potential in this year’s big push behind On’s tennis products. “What I see as On’s biggest opportunity is galvanizing the energy it’s built around running and extending its reach to even more athletes around the world,” says Federer. “What the brand is doing in tennis is a perfect example of that, seizing a massive opportunity to inspire a new generation of fans. The close collaboration On has with its athlete partners is unique, especially when it comes to product development, which is what will enable the brand to continually create innovative, high-performance shoes for play at the highest levels.”

Game on.