‘We’ve never seen a 44% decline in demand for a brand’: Converse is in free fall and some suspect Nike may sell it

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Analysts are asking whether Nike should ditch Converse, a brand in free fall.

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Owning an iconic brand should be a license to print money. But Converse is in free fall, and analysts suspect Nike may sell it.

Converse makes up just 2.5% of Nike’s sales. Last quarter, it accounted for 20% of the company’s sales decline. Two years into Elliott Hill’s tenure as Nike’s CEO, the 118-year-old maker of the Chuck Taylor is a big drag on a comeback that isn’t coming together, with Converse sales down 28% in the most recent quarter and analysts openly wondering whether Nike will keep it in its portfolio.

The brand is enduring an unusually long, deep cold streak. Analysts blame the falloff on Converse’s inability to innovate and its overreliance on the Chuck Taylor model, Fortune’s Phil Wahba reports.

Vans, owned by VF Corp, has had a similarly hard time in recent years for the same reason: over-reliance on skater shoes in distinctive checkered patterns. “We’ve never seen a 44% decline in demand for a brand,” BNP Paribas analyst Laurent Vasilescu noted, citing Converse’s sales deterioration in the fiscal quarter that ended in November 2025. The analyst said he wouldn’t be surprised if Nike ultimately decided to sell off Converse.

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