Posted on 07/28/2007 5:44:30 AM PDT by Red in Blue PA
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. (AP) -- Nike suspended its lucrative contract with Michael Vick on Friday, while Reebok took the unprecedented step of stopping sales of his No. 7 jersey.
In another dose of bad news for the indicted quarterback, a top trading card company announced it was pulling Vick's likeness from any new packs.
Facing protests from animal-rights groups, Nike announced it was suspending Vick's endorsement deal without pay, as well as halting sales of Vick-related shoes and other products at its retail stores.
"Nike is concerned by the serious and highly disturbing allegations made against Michael Vick, and we consider any cruelty to animals inhumane and abhorrent," Nike spokesman Dean Stoyer said in a statement.
Reebok, the official uniform supplier of the NFL, said it would stop selling Vick's replica jersey at retail stores and through its Web site.
Donruss, one of four major trading card companies, has decided to pull Vick's card from any future 2007 releases, according to Beckett Media, which covers the collectibles industry.
All three hits came one day after the Atlanta Falcons quarterback pleaded not guilty to federal dogfighting charges in Richmond, Va. In the indictment, he was accused of sponsoring a gruesome operation that often shot, hanged, drowned or electrocuted losing dogs.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
Was he found guilty?
prisoner6
It doesn’t matter whether he’s been found guilty. Endorsements are all about public perception. The public views Vick as a scumbag and none of the companies want anything to do with him.
Even if he is found not guilty, he will never see another big endorsement contract.
If Vick was not getting his due process, he would be rotting in jail. He is not.
Being an NFL player or endorsed by Nike is a privilege.
Let’s get this nonsensical red herring out of the way, and quick.
I dunno, is Kobe still blacklisted?
Was OJ??
Even if Vick is found innocent in a court of law, there will be no legal recourse for Vick to obtain damages against the companies that dropped him.
I will be surprised if Vick ever steps on an NFL field again. The NFL cannot afford that kind of bad publicity. In the eyes of many Americans, abuse of animals is worse than even child rape or cold-blooded murder.
Michael Vick is as toxic as O.J. Simpson right now - and O.J. was never convicted either.
Thank you for putting this endorsement and play-for-pay situation into proper perspective. I’m so sick of watching the race hustlers defend this piece of trash that I could just about puke.
One of my favorite writers, James Allen Turner (author of “As a Man Thinketh”) wrote, “You don’t attract what you want, you attract what you are.” What Vick wants and is are all too obvious to unbiased minds.
I really haven’t heard anyone defend this guy so far, except for three idiots who drove from Boston to VA to defend him with signs outside of the courthouse.
You can tell a man’s character by the company he keeps, and by the people who support him.
Not as of this date. On the other hand, neither was OJ; how are those endorsement contracts working out?
I have no problem with the sponsors kicking him to the curb. My question is, would the same have happened if ‘all’ he did was beat his wife or girlfriend?
Nike, Reebok, etc. are not the “endorsers.” Vick is.
SI has passed from semi-literate to idiotic.
After all, a little professional dog-baiting shouldn't be an impediment to the professional race-baiters.
Leni
You can take the gangsta outta the hood but you can’t always take the hood outta the gangsta.
Of course insofar as the justice system –- constrained by the Due Process clause — is concerned, he’s innocent until proven guilty.
But the only thing more idiotic than Vick’s ALLEGED participation in this career-destroying stupidity is the obscene salaries paid these clowns for hurling an oblate spheroid to one another and otherwise playing with their balls. Those levels give some of them the idea that they’re bulletproof and outside the rules applied to mere mortals like the morons whose season tickets and product purchases make those salaries possible and give these guys hero status.
They are hardly heroes.
The REAL heroes are dodging bullets and IEDs in Iraq and Trashcanistan — at 1% (or less) of the pay these clowns get for dodging tackles.
Bracing for massive flames from “da sports fans” in here.
i wonder how much his fake jerseys they sell on the streets will go for now. i should stock up!
Vick is a great quarterback and a fantastic athlete.
But making pitbulls fight each other means he is horrible human being.
this a-hole should be judged in a court of his peers...
hang a pork chop around his neck and chain him in the fighting cage!!!!
He should have murdered somebody; things would have gone better for him.
He doesn’t need the money anyway.
In Dec. ‘04 Vick signed a 10-year contract worth $130 million with a $37 million signing bonus making him one of the highest paid players in sports history.
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