Teague and Nike Design Ultimate Plane for Sports Teams

Most sports teams either own their own team plane, or charter flights to get their players to and from games on the road, and while this option certainly is more comfortable than flying regular commercial flights even in first class, these planes are usually just roomier versions of commercial flights.

Teague (who helped designed iconic items such as the Pringles can and the X-Box) has teamed up with Nike to design a plane for the specific purpose of making it easier on athletes to travel on the road.

With teams spending many millions of dollars on a single athlete as well as many millions on training facilities and stadiums to attract and help promote good performance from their investments on their athletes, there is a surprising less focus on how athletes get to and from away games.

It is inevitable that professional athletes will have to travel often and frequently to get to games around the country, but studies show that Major League Baseball teams traveling to games three time zones away lose 60% of their games.

Teague and Nike then went on to focus their design efforts on four areas of performance innovation that is not addressed by commercial charters

“Recovery: equalizing the negative effects of air travel on the mind and body, and bringing the training room to 40,000 feet through in-flight biometrics and analysis to accelerate injury diagnosis and treatment.

Circulation: fostering natural mobility and building in equipment that ensures optimal circulation and promotes healing.

Sleep: designing ideal sleeping conditions for individuals and sleep strategies for entire teams to maximize physical readiness.

Thinking: creating spaces for key mental activities, especially film study—enabling in-transit film review both before and after games.”

They completely rezone the space inside the plane to cater to the unique needs of athletes, coaches, and support staff.

We wonder if/when a team will set out to build out the interior of a plane like this, in a highly competitive industry where even the smallest edge can make or break an empire, we feel like it is only a matter of time.