- Mahomes and Adidas added 13 new high schools to the Gladiator Initiative, growing the program to 28 total schools for the 2026 season.
- New additions span 10 states, including South Oak Cliff, Carthage and Vandegrift (Texas), Christopher Columbus and West Boca (Florida), and Baylor School (Tennessee).
- All 28 programs will wear new all-white "Gladiator" uniforms this fall, styled after Texas Tech's "Too Cold" look.
- Mahomes personally selected every school; the initiative launched with 15 programs in 2025.
Patrick Mahomes and Adidas are doubling down on high school football. The pair announced 13 new additions to Mahomes’ “Gladiator” uniform program, bringing the total to 28 participating high schools nationwide for the 2026 season.
The new class includes South Oak Cliff, Carthage and Vandegrift in Texas, Christopher Columbus and West Boca in Florida, Chandler in Arizona, Corona Centennial in California, Gainesville in Georgia, Bergen Catholic in New Jersey, Grimsley in North Carolina, North Allegheny in Pennsylvania, Manhattan in Kansas, and Baylor School in Tennessee, with the schools hand-selected by Mahomes himself.
Every program will debut new all-white uniforms this fall, inspired by Texas Tech’s “Too Cold” design that debuted on the field last season.
The rollout builds on the original 15-school class Mahomes unveiled during his induction into the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame in May 2025, which included Whitehouse High, his own alma mater.
Christopher Columbus’s addition carries extra weight: the Miami school is the alma mater of Fernando Mendoza, the Indiana Heisman winner and No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, who is now an Adidas-sponsored athlete.
Baylor’s inclusion also ties into Adidas’ broader Tennessee push, joining the University of Tennessee’s 10-year Adidas partnership beginning July 1, 2026.
The high school push is the latest layer in Mahomes’ deepening Adidas ties, which stretch back to his 2017 rookie signing and now include a multi-year contract extension adding a Mahomes-branded golf line, announced in November 2025.
Off the field, Mahomes has stayed busy in 2026, fronting Throne Sport Coffee’s “Better Fuel for Every You” campaign as the brand’s second-largest shareholder.
Adidas, meanwhile, keeps leaning on athletes to power its college comeback, recently tapping Abdul Carter and Ali Krieger to front its Adidas x Penn State campaign.
Takeaways
This isn’t a one-off marketing stunt; it’s Mahomes building a farm system. By putting his logo on 28 high school jerseys before these kids even reach college, he’s turning youth football into a long-term brand pipeline for Adidas.
It’s also a smart hedge against the “athlete brand fatigue” other stars face: rooting the Gladiator name in grassroots football keeps it feeling personal rather than corporate.
Does tying a signature brand to teenage athletes change the stakes of NIL-adjacent marketing? Could this model push other star quarterbacks to build their own “feeder” programs? How much of Mendoza’s draft stock story gets credited to this kind of early brand exposure?
