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Here, here!
I would watch the J.C. Penney (50's) Football League.
Posted on 09/06/2018 7:31:55 AM PDT by Liberty7732
Few companies have tailored their image to a broad audience more carefully than Nike. From NBA greats Michael Jordan and LeBron James to soccer great Cristiano Ronaldo to tennis great Serena Williams, Nike has used mainstream sports superstars to instill the idea that if you “Just Do It” you can achieve anything.
All of which makes their choice of the marginalized, controversial and deeply divisive Colin Kaepernick as the face of their new “Just Do It” marketing blitz bewildering. He is not in sports at all, after a brief NFL career in which he was never a star. Most of his fame outside NFL football junkies accrued when he decided to kneel during the National Anthem before games to protest perceived police violence against blacks — climbing on the shoulders of Black Lives Matter, another divisive group.
Kaepernick’s career was already sliding downward after just one good year, and it dropped off the edge due to his polarizing activism, his lack of being a good talent fit for many teams, and his being distracted by the controversy he created. For the limited value he brought, the circus he also brought was not worth it.
This was a similar dynamic with Tim Tebow — a Bible-believing, mainstream Christian who was also divisive and controversial with his overt, on-field and off-field Christianity and who was never going to be the face of a Nike campaign blitz. Not a bad decision, as he did not fit their successful Jordan-James-Ronaldo formula — but in the same way Kaepernick does not fit it.
Whatever the drawbacks of Tebow, Kaepernick is ten-fold. Which makes it a perplexing business decision; less so a social justice statement.
The only real business explanation is one that Ben Shapiro puts forward: Nike is trolling Trump and conservatives to create a bunch of free publicity (yes, I get the irony) and increase sales, particularly to blacks who buy Nikes at a much higher percentage than whites — but still smaller raw numbers. If that is the business reason, it is likely they have badly misjudged how broadly unpopular Kaepernick is in the mainstream culture, particularly with sports fans — an obvious target market for Nike.
The day following the announcement and the vacuous and clearly inaccurate promo statement under the retired millionaire’s picture — “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything” — the stock valuation of Nike plummeted by $4 billion. That is wildly outside the normal trade range and a direct market response to their decision. And in fact, while it gained back about half a billion of that, the price has now stayed steady at the lower level. Nike is a less valuable company today than it was Monday.
The non-business decision is that Nike, like the NFL, is run not just by social justice-sensitive progressives, but by social justice-sensitive progressives bubbled away in elite and out-of-touch circles, where they all agree over Russian Caviar with Gourmandises Blini that cops are racists, Trump voters are racists, NFL fans outside the luxury skybox are icky and social justice is an important cause célèbre — just not, you know, in their guarded, gated neighborhoods.
The degree to which the progressive elites misunderstand middle America can hardly be overstated. Nike head honchos watched ESPN go full social justice lefty and their ratings tank. They watched CNN do the same and lose one-quarter of its audience in 12 months. They watched the NFL ratings plummet by standing weakly by and allowing a social justice takeover.
Yet they still invited this into their company voluntarily. This Nike example, following on last year’s flaming controversy that centered around Kaepernick, probably illustrates the disconnected nature as well as any.
Nike’s decision just emptied a tank of gasoline on the formerly smoldering burn pile. The NFL had hoped it was moving beyond it. But thanks to Nike’s decision with the toxic Kaepernick — again, just head-shaking that Nike would do this — even the spaghetti-spined, craven NFL had to issue a squishy non-statement statement.
“The National Football League believes in dialogue, understanding and unity. We embrace the role and responsibility of everyone involved with this game to promote meaningful, positive change in our communities,” NFL Executive Vice President of Milquetoast Blather Jocelyn Moore said in a statement.
But here’s the problem. Nike is the NFL’s single biggest business partner (outside perhaps the television networks.) Nike and the NFL have a 10-year contract in place, through 2028, in which the shoe company supplies game-day uniforms to all 32 franchises, a really popular promotion among fans. (Or was. We’ll see how this plays out week after week.) Nike’s iconic swoosh is all over NFL games. And Nike uses the NFL logo prominently in its promotions — including the Kaepernick fiasco.
That means the kneeling controversy burn pile is overnight back to licking flames into the sky — just days before tonight’s kickoff of opening day. Maybe Nike will air their Kaepernick ad during NFL games. That should work great!
Perhaps feckless NFL management and in-your-face Nike kind of deserve each other. American deserves better.
Not enough people chose to turn off the NFL. Too many people making too many excuses to keep watching. NIKE figured it out. A matter of numbers. One man keeps the TV on..2 children in the family..or a wife and one child..uses NIKE products. I mean, how’s Dad gonna stop wifey and child/children from buy NIKE’s when he’s plopped down in front of the TV watching NFL. Same if it’s a wife watching that tripe. One is not going to be able to convince the other if they’re still watching garbage on TV.
I will be waiting for the Trump Rally in Billings to air.
_____________________
Here, here!
I would watch the J.C. Penney (50's) Football League.
In our country we have everything to look forward to in spite of the Democrats yet suicidal tendencies have spread to an important national past time NFL, to important industries such as Nike, and Levi Strauss. What’s next!?
LOL
BridgetGetsEt
Potty mouth Bridget.
Check my tagline.
there are two specific reasons to skip the Eagles/Falcons game:
1. All but one Eagle announced they were skipping the White House invitation to celebrate their Superbowl victory there.
2. The deliberate, in-your-face Nike ad featuring the America-hating, cop-hating moron, Colin Kaepernick
(kind of interesting though that after the NFL seemed to have semi-solved their public kneeling problem, their chief sponsor decides to sabotage them ... my guess is that the Kap/Nike ad will hurt the NFL ratings worse than anything President Trump ever tweeted)
“I wonder if they’ll be pimping a new model of Nike Kaepernick Kop Killer Sneakers.”
actually, Kaepernick will have his own branded line of Nike merchandise ...
“Once NFL teams got wise to the scrambling, Kaepernick got totally shut down and thus revealed his lack of appreciable talent.”
exact same thing was true with Tim Tebow: he only had early success because of his unexpected scrambling ability ... unfortunately, Tebow was a TERRIBLE passer and even worse, never got any better ... he never could read a defense, could never check off multiple receivers and his terrible inaccuracy never improved ...
We don’t watch
Yeah, the UG-lee line. Just like him.
Trust me on this, this was a well thought out, carefully conceived and intentional move aimed towards a single objective: to increase sales.
Now, please note I use sales in the total sense ie world-wide, global, not just the US market. We don't have access to Nike's internal numbers, but the research and analysis behind behind this move certainly can be measured in many, many $ millions. That includes regional demographics studies, growth expectations, (disposable) income estimates, etc. It also includes careful pysch research into potential customer segments with respect to how they feel towards perceived 'injustice' and the desire to 'make a statement' through product identification.
We won't know if their attempt will be successful; but that's why they run horse races. Don't be surprised if this results in increased overseas sales - reflected in Nike's share price. That being said, it could also be a mistake - nothing is guaranteed. They know full well how pissed off certain segments within the US market ie FReeper types, will be. It's all part of the calculation; but to suggest this is some kind of misguided misreading or being out-of-touch is nothing more than an exhibition of ignorance (or wishful thinking).
Like last year, I’ll pass watching the NFL this year.
What would this domestic issue have anything to do with “increasing foreign sales”?
I believe it has more to do as Whitlock said, to join the “Resistance” due to America First and the latter’s threat to Asian sweatshop labor
Think about that. Marginal “increase” in sales if any vs lifetime consumer boycotts. You really would bet on that?
But throw in the billions saved thru slave labor if Trump/GOP lose, and Voila! there you have it
Posted this before, will post this again. And again.
The more “Nike” gets associated with “Asian sweatshop workers” as in “Nike Asian sweatshop workers”, the merrier.
I’d really like to punch “sweatshop workers” into a search engine, on the Web or a social media site, and see “Nike (blank) sweatshop workers (blah, blah).
I can dream, can’t I?
It’d be fun if Trump raised the tariffs on Nike’s imported, unAmerican stuff to 100 or 200%.
That’s a great idea. Spread the association of “Asian” with “sweatshop” where others, esp liberals can see it. Let them question Nike’s REAL motivation, not “social justice” or fake “sacrifice” or “principles” but increa$ing $ale$. racial pandering, and Hate Trump for America First threatening its overseas costs (by a large margin)
Let them see Nike as the CAPITALIST PIGS they are!!
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