Whoop Has Ferrari on Its Wrist. Garmin Is Coming for the Rest.

Whoop, the Boston-based wearable company, has spent the last decade quietly and progressively signing the biggest names in global sport. It’s doubling down on a play for elite positioning, not simply for a piece of fully-featured, high-end tech to place on your wrist like Garmin.

Only this week, Whoop announced it is the official health and fitness wearable partner of Scuderia Ferrari HP. Lewis Hamilton will wear a Whoop band when the Formula 1 season opens in Melbourne. Plus, the company’s Performance Science group will work directly with Ferrari’s medical staff on driver recovery, sleep and resilience — and Whoop branding will appear on the SF-26 race car.

At about the same time, Whoop secured a club-wide deal with Al-Nassr Football Club, becoming the Saudi Pro League side’s exclusive wearable partner through the 2026 season. This formalises something already happening on the pitch. Several Al Nassr players — including Cristiano Ronaldo, a Whoop investor and brand ambassador since 2024 — had already adopted the device independently before the club signed.

The company has also extended its ambitions well beyond the wrist. Its Advanced Labs platform, launched in September 2025 in partnership with Quest Diagnostics, integrates clinical blood biomarker testing — covering cholesterol, hormone health and blood glucose — with continuous wearable data. More than 350,000 members are claimed to have joined the waitlist before it opened. Chief executive Will Ahmed describes it as a step toward becoming “a health operating system.”

Whoop has had an impressively consistent and strong upward trajectory. However, the competitive landscape is catching up and fighting back. Polar launched its screenless Loop band in September 2025, directly targeting the form factor that Whoop pioneered. Garmin, which has long fielded requests from its customer base for a screenless 24/7 recovery band, is widely expected to enter the category in 2026 with the leaked Garmin CIRQA band — a move that would deploy the company’s considerable ecosystem and distribution resources against Whoop’s subscription model. Garmin forecast 2026 revenues of $7.9 billion this week, with its fitness segment up 42 per cent in the final quarter of 2025. The question for the incumbents is less the hardware than the app: Whoop’s coaching and analytics platform remains a significant lead that established watch brands have so far struggled to close. Garmin can certainly match Whoop on features, but can it match Whoop on usability and desirability?

Whoop has not been passive in defending its dominant position in its niche market. In October 2025, the company filed a lawsuit against Polar, alleging that the Polar Loop was a wholesale copy of its trade dress — specifically, its screen-free fabric strap and metal side accents — and, separately, secured a court injunction blocking U.S. sales of a rival band made by Lexqi on the same grounds.

Whoop has raised more than $400 million in venture capital and ships to 56 markets. The partnership pipeline suggests it intends to spend that capital on sport’s biggest stages, carefully positioning its brand where its competitors typically avoid.

Whoop Pro Sports Partnerships: Timeline

• Al Nassr FC (2026)
• Alba Larsen / F1 Academy (2026)
• Scuderia Ferrari HP (2026)
• Ryder Cup (2025)
• Project FASTT / Monash University (2025)
• British & Irish Lions (2025)
• Warner Bros. Discovery / Grand Tours broadcast (2024)
• WHOOP UCI Mountain Bike World Series — Title Partner (2024–2026)
• UCI Mountain Bike World Series — data partner, inaugural season (2023)
• Women’s Tennis Association (2021)
• UCI Track Champions League (2021–2024)
• CrossFit — Official Wearable (2021)
• LPGA Tour (2021)
• Notre Dame Athletics (2021)
• Howard University Athletics (2021)
• EF Pro Cycling / Tour de France (2022)
• PGA Tour (2020)
• NFLPA — extended, full league supply (2020)
• NFLPA — founding partnership (2017)
• MLB — first in-game wearable approval (2017)
• Elite ambassadors – Cristiano Ronaldo, Virgil van Dijk, LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes, Kevin Durant, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Nelly Korda, Jessica Korda, Aryna Sabalenka, Sloane Stephens, Virat Kohli, Michael Phelps, Eli Manning, Larry Fitzgerald, Nick Watney, Lewis Hamilton

Last Updated on 21 February 2026 by the5krunner

the5krunner

tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors.