Made to Last Podcast

Made to Last Podcast

WHAT'S IN THE BOX? Vol 3: Customizable Cleats for Travon Walker | MADE TO LAST

Sep 4, 2026 · 12 min · 5 segments

WHAT’S IN THE BOX? VOL. 3 — TRAVON WALKER’S CUSTOM CLEATS BY FCTRY LABWhat happens when you design a cleat around the athlete—not the other way around?In Volume 3 of What’s In The Box?, Omar takes us…

WHAT’S IN THE BOX? VOL. 3 — TRAVON WALKER’S CUSTOM CLEATS BY FCTRY LABWhat happens when you design a cleat around the athlete—not the other way around?In Volume 3 of What’s In The Box?, Omar takes us inside the development of a custom cleat for Jacksonville Jaguars defensive end Travon Walker, built specifically around his performance needs.The cleat features a modular plate system capable of producing two different stud lengths from a single mold. That means less time and money in development—and a much easier experience for equipment managers, eliminating the need to constantly swap screw-in spikes.The longer studs are designed to give Travon additional traction when playing in wet and challenging conditions.And the customization doesn't stop at the outsole.Travon also went through FCTRY Lab's 3D foot scanning process, allowing the team to create a custom last shaped specifically around his foot. The result is a more precise fit with less unnecessary space inside the shoe.As Omar puts it, there's no room for that extra “foot juice.” 😂In this episode, we break down how performance, fit, manufacturing efficiency and athlete-specific engineering come together to create a cleat built for the player.This is what happens when the athlete becomes part of the development process.#WhatsInTheBox #FCTRYLab #TravonWalker #Jaguars #NFL #FootballCleats #FootwearDesign #ProductDevelopment #FootwearInnovation #MadeToLast

WHAT’S IN THE BOX? VOL. 3 — TRAVON WALKER’S CUSTOM CLEATS BY FCTRY LABWhat happens when you design a cleat around the athlete—not the other way around?In Volume 3 of What’s In The Box?, Omar takes us…

Speakers: Omar BaileyHostDuane LawrenceHost

Two Cleat Plates for Different Surfaces0:32 – 4:50

Omar BaileyHost

0:32

These are the cleats for Trayvon Walker, edge rusher for the jacksonville jaguars just a complete just a complete beast out on the field that's the only way i can describe it and uh...

Omar BaileyHost

0:44

the reason why i have two cleats up here is uh... to walk through a detail that we did for trayvon so trayvon's a big guy to paint a picture of him he's six five 280 pounds so he's a very lean uh edge rusher just literally like designed to terrorize quarterbacks like that's what he does so with trayvon he wanted to have you know jacksonville is actually i believe one of the one of the few teams left to play on natural grass um So we wanted, even though the grass is cut very fine, if you ever got very close to like a NFL field, it's almost like a golf course, like the green on a golf course.

Omar BaileyHost

1:25

So it's really, really thin.

Omar BaileyHost

1:27

However, if it rains or, you know, if there's inclement weather, then it obviously gets a little bit mushy.

Omar BaileyHost

1:31

So you want to be able to have better grip on the field or on that surface.

Omar BaileyHost

1:37

So we created two versions of the cleat.

Omar BaileyHost

1:39

One with a shorter stud that you can see here.

Omar BaileyHost

1:44

And then the second version with a much longer stud.

Omar BaileyHost

1:49

These almost look like shark teeth.

Omar BaileyHost

1:50

It's almost double.

Omar BaileyHost

1:51

Yeah.

Omar BaileyHost

1:52

Yeah, literally double the length.

Omar BaileyHost

1:54

And if you look closely, they're sort of lightning shaped.

Omar BaileyHost

1:59

But it's almost two cleats.

Omar BaileyHost

2:02

So it's almost like shark teeth where they're layered on top of each other.

Duane LawrenceHost

2:05

Yeah.

Omar BaileyHost

2:06

different rows, it's the same thing here that we did.

Omar BaileyHost

2:09

But the significance of this is that we didn't open up two molds, we did this all in the same mold.

Omar BaileyHost

2:15

So normally when you make a sole, a shoe of any kind, you have to open up a mold.

Omar BaileyHost

2:20

You make one, usually you have to make a mold for each one.

Omar BaileyHost

2:24

In this case, we were able to develop a mold where a certain element or cavity inside the mold could be removed from the shorter version, and then it can produce the longer version.

Omar BaileyHost

2:37

And that, I mean, the obvious advantage in that is cost, right? I mean, a mold like this can cost...

Omar BaileyHost

2:44

$8,000 to $10,000 for a cleat plate.

Omar BaileyHost

2:47

So if you multiply that by two, I mean, you're talking about just under 20 grand for two plates.

Omar BaileyHost

2:54

So being able to condense that all into one and by just making a change by removing an element from inside of the plate to make another addition to that plate makes a huge difference to be able to do it.