Playing on his fourth NBA team in his fourth NBA Finals, Kyrie Irving returned to Boston Thursday night with a spring in his step. He also had new shoes on his feet during warmups, before he scored 12 points in the Dallas Mavericks‘ 107-89 Game 1 loss to the Boston Celtics.
Nike ended a nearly 10-year relationship with Irving in 2022 — reportedly its second most valuable player deal at the time behind LeBron James’ brand — after the guard shared a link to an anti-Semitic film on Twitter and Instagram. “He made some statements that we just can’t abide by,” Nike co-founder Phil Knight said that November.
Last July, Irving entered into a five-year tie-up with Chinese corporation Anta that made him the company’s chief creative officer as well as its basketball marketing face. Now, he’s pushing the brand — which has received congressional scrutiny for alleged links to forced labor — into the sports mainstream.
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On Thursday, Irving wore a pair of Anta Kai 1 Speeds in the “Twin Flame” colorway before Game 1 started, a day after selling out the debut stock of the “Playoffs Energy” version of his Anta Kai 1’s in roughly 10 minutes — a well-timed release with the eight-time All-Star back on the sport’s biggest stage. His flashy footwear during Dallas’ surprise playoff push — including a prototype design worn against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and a moccasin-inspired look (a nod to his Native American heritage) during Game 1 against the Celtics and for multiple games against the Minnesota Timberwolves — has consistently made headlines.
Irving’s teammates Derrick Jones Jr. and Daniel Gafford also wore Anta shoes during Game 1.
“When it comes to Kai product, it’s absolutely electric right now,” Anta Sports head of U.S. marketing Christian Laursen said in an interview. “What we like to call his tribe [or fan groups] have been supporting him through and through. They’ve shown up. We don’t have enough pairs in the United States and could probably do 10 times the amount to what we’re [currently] putting in the marketplace.”
Anta, which does 95 percent of its business in China and broader southeast Asia, signed Irving (a.k.a. Chief Hela) in July in a move that allowed the company to take a bigger swing in the U.S. marketplace. The Chinese manufacturer went to market with his signature sneakers starting in March, compressing a lengthy timetable that usually takes 18-24 months for major shoe brands.
Laursen says that over the last year, Anta has gained knowledge about various retail partners and its U.S. consumer base while gaining more confidence with every sold-out Irving drop, with plans to scale over time.
“Ultimately, it’s about getting Kai back to that business he was doing with Nike in the next couple years,” he said.
Irving has managed to generate excitement in the U.S in his first year with Anta, leaning on various boutiques such as Sneaker Politics in Dallas, Sneaker Room in Jersey City, N.J., and Extra Butter in New York City.
Since coming over to Anta, Irving’s camp, led by his stepmother and agent Shetellia Riley Irving, has been heavily involved from shoe design to distribution. Kyrie Irving’s father, Drederick Irving, is reportedly slated to get his own signature shoe deal, a first in pro sports.
According to data from sneaker marketplace StockX, Anta trade volume has increased 5,000 percent after seeing limited moves last year, pushing the label into the top 25 on the platform. In addition to Irving, Anta’s hoops roster includes Golden State’s Klay Thompson, New York’s Donte DiVincenzo and Oklahoma City’s Gordon Hayward.
Of course, Anta is not the only China-based brand affiliated with NBA players. Dwyane Wade became one of the first major endorsers to ditch Western brands when he signed with Li-Ning in 2012. That company has since added CJ McCollum and Jimmy Butler to its roster. In December, two-time MVP Nikola Jokic signed with 361 Degrees. Chinese apparel brand Rigorer has a deal with Los Angeles Laker Austin Reaves.
In total, more than 20 NBA players have had relationships with one of the Chinese brands, and the increased exposure has led to a boom in U.S. collector interest. Rigorer, Anta and Li-Ning are all outselling Under Armour on StockX so far in 2024.
“Chinese brands have figured out the playbook that the U.S. based companies have had for a long time,” StockX merchandising director for sneakers Drew Haines said. “Which is get the stars that are in the NBA, give them signature models and then just start pumping out colorways and make it unique.”
The Anta-Irving partnership has also brought new energy to U.S. retail, specifically with leading sneaker boutiques.
For instance, Sneaker Politics and Extra Butter held events in March for the release of the Anta Kai 1 “Artist on Court,” the shoe’s debut colorway.
“The details are great, the design language is beautiful and the minute you touch the shoe you know it’s worth more than what you are paying,” Extra Butter owner Ankur Amin said of the $125 Kai 1. “It really delivers a lot more for the price.”
Irving attended the Sneaker Politics event in Dallas, which storeowner Derek Curry said was swarmed by more than 2,500 people on a closed-down Main Street.
“We sold out of the launch and there was another 2,000 people that didn’t get the shoes who wanted them,” Curry said. “For the next [Kai 1 colorway] releases, I tried to hit the gas on them and get more pairs, but Anta is kind of limiting them. Every drop we’ve had since the first sold out as well.”
Footwear industry insider Matt Powell, an advisor at Spurwink River and a senior advisor at BCE Consulting, believes Anta’s choice of using exclusive retailers to introduce the product and keeping the number of shoes limited is the correct strategy.
“The key is not to flood the market,” Powell said. “The key is to keep the product pretty limited and gradually roll it up, and not try to hit a home run right out of the box.”
Both Curry and Amin confirmed they are interested in a deeper relationship with Anta and carrying a greater stock of Irving’s footwear.
With a market cap of $32 billion, Anta Sports (which has stakes in brands including Wilson, Fila and Arc’teryx) is now the fourth-largest sporting goods company in the world, behind Nike, Adidas and Lululemon. The Anta brand specifically reported record sales in fiscal 2023, seeing a 9 percent revenue jump in large part due to the growth of direct-to-consumer sales.
But the American expansion of Chinese shoe brands has not been without controversy. In October, a bipartisan Congressional commission called on the NBA to ban the use of apparel made by forced labor in China, two years after the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) effectively prohibited goods manufactured in the Xinjiang region from entering the country.
“While the genocide continues, Anta, Peak and Li-Ning likely continue to profit from the systematic use of forced labor in the [Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region],” a September 2023 letter from the commission to the National Basketball Players Association stated. “Furthermore, we have urged U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop all imports of goods from these companies.”
UFLPA enforcement has recently been focused on the electronics sector — with solar panels specifically receiving scrutiny. But that’s not to say apparel companies will remain free of disruption. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security announced “an enhanced strategy to combat illicit trade” in the textile industry this April, focusing on small package shipments and adding more than 20 additional textile sector companies to the list of explicitly banned entities, among other measures.
“I wouldn’t read any particular assessment by Customs into the fact that you see these shoes being imported,” Miller & Chevalier customs attorney Richard Mojica said. “We still have not seen, as a particular commodity of interest, a big spike in — or big interest in — detaining footwear.”
A 2022 report from nonprofit group KnowTheChain gave Anta a score of seven out of 100 on the issue of eradicating forced labor from its supply chain. Anta received a score of 0 on its traceability, purchasing practices and remedy programs.
“Both Kyrie Irving and Anta stand firmly against human rights violations,” Irving and the company said in a 2023 statement. “The allegations surrounding Anta’s involvement in such practices are gravely concerning. However, Anta has consistently clarified that their suppliers are prohibited from using forced or involuntary labor in any part of their manufacturing processes.”
Li-Ning also faced customs seizures in 2022 after an investigation found the company used North Korean labor for production. At the time, the company said it “strictly prohibits and opposes any form of forced labor.”
Today, the sneaker companies’ products remain available to Americans direct-to-consumer from company websites; via marketplaces like StockX and Kicks Crew, which Irving announced an investment in last December; or at specific retail locations. That is, assuming other buyers haven’t already snatched every available pair.
“We’re not seeing any consumer reactions to say like, ‘Oh, because this is a Chinese brand, I don’t want it,’” Haines said. “In fact, quite the opposite. It seems like they’re ripping at all-time highs for us.”
