What’s really going on with FILA’s tennis business
Based on conversations with FILA executives, player agents, and a close read of the company’s latest earnings.
For a brand that helped define tennis style for decades, FILA has been particularly quiet lately and fans have noticed.
Over the past year, the company has pulled out of the North American market, let a number of sponsored players go, and shifted several remaining relationships from paid endorsements to product-only deals. That vacuum has fueled plenty of speculation online and around the tour, with rumors ranging from FILA “leaving tennis entirely” to the brand being in far deeper trouble than it actually is.
So what’s actually going on?
That last assumption doesn’t square with the numbers. Before the pullback, FILA’s North American business had been operating at a loss—a reality the company had previously disclosed and one of the clearest reasons management opted to restructure rather than continue investing at the same level. But by the time Misto Holdings (FILA’s South Korean parent company) reported earnings in November 2025, the pullback was doing what it was meant to do: losses were down and results had stabilized, even as the company’s strongest growth continued to come from categories outside of tennis.
FILA, for its part, insists that the narrative around its tennis business has drifted far from reality.
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