Nike, Inc.

Nike, Inc. NYSE: NKE (pronounced - 'Nigh-Key' in America but usually pronounced to rhyme with "Mike" in the UK) is a major manufacturer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment, marketing its products under its own brand as well as Air Jordan, Nike Golf, Team Starter (among others), and under brands from wholly-owned subsidiaries including Bauer, Cole Haan, Converse, and Hurley International.

Nike produces the kit for many of the world's Football clubs and national sides, including Brazil, Portugal and Manchester United.

Nike's mailing address is in Beaverton, Oregon, part of the Portland metropolitan area; the company's headquarters are in unincorporated Washington County.

The company takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

Timeline

• 1962 Phil Knight drafts a thesis paper at Stanford University in which he asserts that low-priced athletic shoes made in Japan could compete with more expensive footwear made in Germany. After earning his MBA, Knight travels to Japan, where he meets with executives from Onitsuka Tiger and persuades them to make Knight's company, 'Blue Ribbon Sports,' the distributor of Tiger brand footwear for the western United States.

• 1964 Knight sends samples of Tiger footwear to legendary University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman, for whom Knight ran middle distances while an undergraduate. Bowerman suggests that he and Knight become partners, with Bowerman to provide endorsement clout as well as footwear design ideas. The two shake hands and each pledge $500 to start the new venture.

• 1965 Jeff Johnson, a former track rival of Knight's, joins as the company's first full-time salesman. He sells shoes out of the back of his van to high schoolers at track meets.

• 1966 Johnson opens the company's first retail outlet in Santa Monica, California. Knight and Bowerman convert their handshake agreement into a formal, written agreement.

• 1967 Knight and Bowerman incorporate Blue Ribbon Sports, creating BRS, Inc.

• 1969 With annual sales approaching $300,000, Knight resigns as a professor at Portland State University to devote himself full-time to BRS, Inc.

• 1970 Bowerman experiments with rubber spikes, pouring a liquid rubber compound into his wife's waffle iron, which led to the creation of the 'waffle' sole.

• 1971 The relationship between BRS, Inc. and Onitsuka Tiger deteriorates, causing Knight to begin development of a new athletic footwear brand. A graphic design student at Portland State University named Carolyn Davidson is hired by Knight to design the new brand to put on the side of his company's shoes. She is paid $35 (US), and works for Nike for a few years until they need a full ad agency. Twelve years later, in 1983, Ms. Davidson receives a gold Swoosh ring with an embedded diamond at a luncheon honoring her, along with a certificate and an undisclosed amount of Nike stock, in recognition of the Swoosh design logo.

• 1971 Along with the new brand, BRS, Inc. needs a name for its new line of footwear. Dozens of suggestions, including Knight's favorite "Dimension Six," are rejected until Jeff Johnson dreams up the name Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

• 1972 The first Nike products, adorned with the Swoosh, are delivered to athletes competing in Eugene, Oregon for the US Olympic Track & Field trials.

• 1973 American record-holder Steve Prefontaine becomes the first major track athlete to wear Nike shoes, and converts many of his fellow competitors to Nike until his death on May 30, 1975.

• 1974 The Waffle Trainer is introduced, quickly becoming the best-selling training shoe in the U.S.

• 1977 Nike print ad with the tag "There is no finish line" is introduced, and is so popular that poster versions are created to meet consumer demand.

• 1978 Tennis 'bad boy' John McEnroe is signed by Nike to an endorsement contract.

• 1979 Nike's Air technology patented by inventor M. Frank Rudy is introduced in the Tailwind running shoe. Gas-filled plastic membranes are inserted into the sole of running shoes to provide cushioning.

• 1980 Nike completes an initial public offering of 2,377,000 shares of Class B common stock on December 2.

• 1981 BRS, Inc. merges into Nike, Inc. on December 31, and the company officially becomes known as Nike, Inc.

• 1982 Dan Wieden and Dave Kennedy start their own advertising agency, taking with them the Nike account on April 1. In October, Nike airs its first national television ad during the New York Marathon.

• 1982 The Air Force 1 basketball shoe becomes the first Nike court shoe to make use of the Air technology.

• 1984 Nike signs Michael Jordan to an endorsement contract. The first model of his signature shoe, the Air Jordan, originally is banned by the NBA, drawing a tremendous amount of publicity. The introduction of the Air Jordan shoe was a key event in Nike's successful development.

• 1986 Nike revenues surpass $1 billion for the first time.

• 1987 The Nike Air Max shoe is introduced, which uses a much larger Air cushioning unit, and for the first time is visible at the side of the midsole. This was the first of many generations of Air Max-branded technologies. A television ad featuring the Beatles' song "Revolution" was the first and only time that a song performed by the Beatles was used in a TV ad.

• 1988 Nike introduces its "Just Do It" slogan.

• 1989 Nike introduces a new type of footwear designed specifically for cross-training, and features two-sport athlete Bo Jackson in a series of memorable ads called "Bo Knows."

• 1990 Nike opens the first Niketown store in downtown Portland, and the store quickly earns numerous retail design and business awards. Over the next ten years, Nike will open 14 more Niketown stores across the USA and in England and Germany.

• 1990 Nike opens its world headquarters in unincorporated Washington County, just west of Portland, on 74 acres of land.

• 1993 Nike introduces an innovative sustainability program, Reuse-A-Shoe, which collects athletic shoes, separates and grinds them up into Nike Grind. which is used in the making of athletic courts, tracks and fields.

• 1994 Nike signs a long-term partnership with the Brazilian national football (soccer) team, launching a company-wide effort to become the world's leading football brand.

• 1996 Nike signs Tiger Woods soon after the young golfing phenom gives up his amateur status. Woods becomes the standard bearer for Nike Golf as that division gains market share.

• 1996 Nike causes controversy with advertising campaign at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta which features the slogan, "You Don't Win Silver — You Lose Gold." Nike's use of this slogan draws harsh criticism from many sources, including several former Olympic silver and bronze medalists.

• 1998 Phil Knight formally commits Nike to strict standards for manufacturing facilities used by Nike, including: minimum age; air quality; mandatory education programs; expansion of microloan program; factory monitoring; and enhanced transparency of Nike's corporate social responsibility practices.

• 1999 Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, dies on Dec. 24 at age 88.

• 2000 Shox is introduced.

• 2002 Rap star Nelly releases a chart topping song about Air Force Ones, a brand of Nike shoes.

• 2003 Nike acquires bankrupt rival Converse for $305 million.

• 2003 For the first time in the company's history, international sales exceed USA sales, as Nike continues to develop into a truly global company.

• 2003 Nike is named "Advertiser of the Year" by the Cannes Advertising Festival, the first company to earn that honor twice (also 1994) in the festival's 50-year history.

• 2003 High school basketball star LeBron James signs with Nike; James went on to be the rookie-of-the-year.

• 2004 Phil Knight steps down as CEO and President of Nike, but continues as chairman. Knight is replaced by William D. Perez as CEO of Nike, effective Dec. 28.

• 2004 Nike creates the Exeter Brands Group, a wholly owned subsidiary for athletic footwear and apparel brands for lower price points. Brands include Starter, Team Starter, Asphalt, Shaq and Dunkman.

• 2004 Annual revenues exceed $13 billion.

• 2004 In June, Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqianq, of Xiao Xiao fame, files a lawsuit against Nike for plagiarizing his cartoon stickmen in their commercials. Nike representatives deny the accusations, claiming that the stickman figure lacks originality, and is public domain. Zhu eventually wins the lawsuit, and Nike is sentenced to pay $36,000 to the cartoonist.

• 2005 Nike launches the Air Jordan XX, the 20th edition of the Air Jordan basketball shoe series.
• 2005 Nike introducses the Nike Free shoe.

Corporate responsibility

Diversity

Nike received a 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index released by the Human Rights Campaign in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

Factory worker conditions

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Nike has been criticised by some for using sweatshop labor in countries like Indonesia and Mexico. The company has been subject to much critical coverage of the often poor working conditions and exploitation of cheap overseas labor employed in the free trade zones where their goods are typically manufactured. Sources of this criticism include Naomi Klein's book No Logo and Michael Moore's documentaries. This criticism is reflected in the novel Jennifer Government, in which an amoral Nike executive is the story's villain.

The forced labor camp like conditions in some overseas production plants led to several called-for boycotts ([1]), together with coining the alternative name "swooshtika" for the company's swoosh logo ([2]).

Nike was criticized about ads which referred to empowering women in the U.S. while engaging in practices in East Asian factories which some felt disempowered women ([3]).

Advertisement controversies

Nike v. Kasky

The company faced criticism when it claimed immunity from a false advertising lawsuit filed by Marc Kasky in California based on the claim that it enjoyed First Amendment rights, as if the corporation were a human being. The dispute proceeded all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court Nike v. Kasky, but was sent back to California courts without a substantive ruling and subsequently was settled out of court.

Beatles song

Nike has been a focus of criticism for their use of the Beatles song "Revolution" in a commercial, against the wishes of John Lennon's widow and Paul McCartney. Such use is considered by some to demean the author's intent in writing the song.

Minor Threat ad

In late June 2005, Nike came under fire from independent music fans for their use of an easily identifiable Minor Threat album cover slightly modified into a promotional tool for their line of skateboarding shoes. With Minor Threat being emblematic of underground punk rock culture, and their former frontman Ian MacKaye (of Fugazi and Dischord Records) being an outspoken champion of true independent music and the DIY ethic, Nike's move to use this image struck many as a cynical attempt by a large, money hungry corporation to target an untapped demographic, undermining what Minor Threat stood for, and what Dischord continues to represent.
On June 27th, Nike skateboarding's website issued an apology to Dischord, Minor Threat, and anyone else who was offended by their act, and announced that all uses of the image would be removed.

Relationship with Beaverton

Nike's world headquarters are surrounded by Beaverton, Oregon but are technically within unincorporated Washington County. This technicality reflects a dispute that The Oregonian characterized as an increasingly personal disagreement between Phil Knight and Beaverton mayor Rob Drake.

From Nike's perspective, the company, the only Fortune 500 employer still headquartered in the Portland metropolitan area, has such a large payroll in the area that it shouldn't be forced to be annexed into Beaverton without its consent. Nike prefers to work with county government as it develops and expands its headquarters. Annexation would cost the company $700,000 per year in increased taxes for services it already receives from the county and various special-purpose districts. Intel, another large employer in the state, routinely receives special tax breaks on various capital investments it makes in the county.

From Beaverton's perspective, the company's expectation for special treatment is counter to the city's desire to have zoning and other laws apply equally to all businesses, big and small. A nearby Costco store, one of that company's earliest, was annexed into Beaverton years ago without incident, and Beaverton's focus on additional annexation during the 21st century reflects a desire to streamline both city and county government by having metropolitan-area services handled by cities instead of counties.

The Oregonian dates the bad blood between the two back to the Nike purchase of 74 acres of nearby Beaverton land which soon fronted the MAX Blue Line. When Nike proposed expanding their headquarters in that direction, Beaverton at first wanted them to build housing near the MAX station and criss-cross the property with two public roads, expectations defined by the zoning already in place with Nike bought the land. Beaverton's request was mostly consistent with Metro's transit-oriented development plans for the region. After a year, which included a threat by Nike to move 5,000 jobs out of the state, Beaverton backed down from the requirement for housing, but the lack of accommodation was something that Nike did not forget.

The annexation standoff soon led Beaverton to attempt a forcible annexation. That led to a lawsuit by Nike, and lobbying by the company that ultimately ended in Oregon Senate Bill 887. Under that bill's terms, Beaverton is specifically barred from forcibly annexing the land that Nike and Columbia Sportswear occupy in unincorporated Washington County for 35 years, while Electro Scientific Industries and Tektronix get that same protection for 30 years.