‘Listening to the player.’ Why Dolphins CB Jalen Ramsey partnered with a Black-owned shoe brand
Jalen Ramsey could sign with any shoe company that he wanted.
The Miami Dolphins cornerback is a future hall of famer, after all. Besides, he already ran the sneaker gauntlet. Air Jordan. Nike. Adidas.
So when he had to decide which company to sign next sign with in 2022, he waited. Contemplated. Studied. The perfect fit would soon emerge: FCTRY LAb.
“You don’t hear about it all,” Ramsey said. “Other Black men and women being dominant in the sneaker space. Being innovators in the space. Thinking outside of the box. You don’t see it that often and it doesn’t get highlighted enough.”
A Black-led shoe company founded in 2022, FCTRY LAb and its collaboration with Ramsey seeks to revolutionize relationships between athletes and their sneaker sponsors. Just ask the All-Pro cornerback himself.
“It’s a cleat that’s molded to my foot,” Ramsey said of the aptly named JR 1s. “Super light. Super traction in all the spots that I needed.”
Other brands, Ramsey continued, do player exclusives and create insoles from feet scans but “it’s not really a custom cleat molded to you.” FCTRY LAb, however, made a cast of his foot and created the cleat from there.
“These cleats were constructed for my foot,” Ramsey added, calling it “a process like none other.”
Ramsey’s affinity for the brand stems from not only its innovative approach but also the overlap. One of its co-founders, Omar Bailey, previously headed the innovation lab at Yeezy and Adidas between 2019-2022, something he described as creating the brand’s “prototype sample shop.”
“My job was basically to lead a team to bring whatever idea [Kanye West] came up with to life, like the foam runner, the 450,” said Bailey, a native of the Bronx who moved to West Palm Beach at the age of 10. “We helped scale that business. When we started, it was doing $700 million in revenue and we literally scaled it to $3 billion.”
Ramsey and Bailey met in 2022 while the former was still a Los Angeles Ram. The seven-time Pro Bowler’s deal with Adidas had nearly reached its end, and he wanted to do something different. Enter Bailey.
“I have intimate knowledge in building these products but at the end of the day, it’s as simple as just listening to the player,” said Bailey whose expertise in the field of design and contract manufacturing helped him previously land jobs with Timberland, New Balance & K-Swiss.
The process took about a year as Ramsey and Bailey “built the cleat from the ground up,” the cornerback said. It involved a lot of trial and error as Ramsey had to teach the people at FCTRY LAb how he played the game so that the cleats would be best suited for his needs.
“Low cut, no midsole,” Ramsey said, explaining that he wanted his “feet to be light.” The strategic placement of the cleat studs took the longest because “it was all function.”
Bailey and FCTRY LAb finished the cleats ahead of the 2023 season. The results spoke for themselves: during its NFL performance testing, something all cleats must undergo for players to wear, the JR 1s ranked in the top five, according to Bailey.
“We were able to create a great product,” Bailey said. Ramsey “missed almost half the season last year, comes back, has a great, makes the Pro Bowl and he did it in the cleat. I remember he texted me after the last game of the season and he said ‘Yo O, these the best cleats I’ve ever played in.’ Now that has opened up the door for other athletes.”
Bailey listed Jacksonville Jaguars edge rusher Travon Walker and San Francisco 49ers star offensive lineman Trent Williams as two players who currently have cleats in production. And while the JR 2s are not available for purchase, it’s Bailey’s goal to eventually produce cleats for public consumption. FCTRY LAb already sells three shoes – the Duck Boot, Mocc and Knight RNR – each of which came about through collaborations with rapper NLE Choppa, University of Colorado safety Shilo Sanders and Williams, respectively. But more than that, Bailey wants to inspire the next generation of sneaker-loving teenagers.
“My parents didn’t buy me the sneakers that I wanted growing up,” said Bailey who still remembers how amazing he felt when he got his first pair of Space Jam Air Jordan 11s at the age of 18. That single-handedly sparked a passion that hasn’t left him since and he wants others to know that they can do the same. “I had hoops dream just like everyone else did who looked like me growing up but they shifted to shoe dreams. I want to be able to expand on that and show people that you don’t necessarily have to be a pro athlete or a rapper or an entertainer to be successful from our perspective.”
Added Ramsey: “I’m big on the youth but this is something that’s good for even the youth to see. Like you can still be involved in sports. Maybe you can’t be Jalen Ramsey but you can still be around football.”
This story was originally published December 30, 2024 at 1:48 PM.
