Nike, Inc.

Nike
Image:Nikeclassic.jpg
Type	Public (NYSE: NKE)
Founded	1967[1]
Headquarters	Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Key people	Philip Knight, Co-Founder and Chairman Bill Bowerman, Co-Founder Mark Parker, CEO and president
Industry	Sportswear and Sports Equipment
Products	Athletic shoes, apparel, sports equipment, accessories
Revenue	$15.0 Billion (FY 2006)[2]
Employees	26,700 (2006)
Slogan	Just Do It
Website	http://www.nike.com/

Nike, Inc. (IPA: /naɪki/) (NYSE: NKE) is a major American supplier of athletic shoes, apparel and sports equipment. The company takes its name from Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, after company designer Jeff Johnson presented the name to founder Phil Knight. Nike markets its products under its own brand as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Air Jordan, Team Starter, and subsidiaries including Bauer, Cole Haan, Hurley, Int. and Converse. Nike is the largest sportswear supplier in the world.

Trademarks

Main article: Swoosh

The legendary 'swoosh' symbol, a Nike trademark, was designed by a graphic artist student at Portland State University named Carolyn Davidson for $35. She did, however, later receive Nike stock and a golden 'swoosh' ring.

History

Main article: Nike timeline

Bill Bowerman started designing shoes in the 1970s with financial assitance from Phil Knight who is the original founder of Nike Inc., Bill Bowerman later joined.

Products

Nike produces a wide range of sports goods. Their first product were sports shoes. They make jerseys for a wide range of sports including: Tennis, Soccer, Cricket, Golf. As well as shoes for those sports.There most reasent shoes just put out on the market are Nike 6.0 and Nike SB. These are new skate shoes.

Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of Nike are: Mark Parker, Timothy D. Cook, Ralph D. DeNunzio, John G. Connors, Jill Ker Conway, Alan B. Graf, Douglas G. Houser, Jeanne P. Jackson, Philip Knight, Orin C. Smith, and John Thompson.

Rivalry and competition

Because Nike creates goods for a wide range of sports, they have competition from every sports and sports fashion brand. Initially, Nike had no direct competitors because there was no single brand which could compete directly with Nike's range of sports and non-sports oriented gear until Reebok came along in the 1980s. Reebok now has merchandising contracts with the National Football League and the National Hockey League in the United States, and was purchased in 2006 by Adidas.

Sponsorship of Athletes and Teams

Nike's influences stretch from its production systems to its fashions, while along the way developing technologies. Their advertising campaigns often involve sponsored athletes like Roger Federer, Kobe Bryant, Maria Sharapova, LeBron James, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lance Armstrong, Michael Jordan, Wayne Rooney, Steve Nash and Aaron Lennon.

Nike is also well-known for signing many of the world's top football (soccer) clubs and national teams, including Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Russia, Morocco,South Korea, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Turkey, the United States men's, women's, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Zambia,Pro Santos F.C, FC Barcelona, Manchester United FC, Arsenal FC, Juventus FC, Internazionale FC, Hamilton Accies,Celtic FC, Borussia Dortmund, Corinthians, Flamengo, Boca Juniors, the India Cricket Team, England Rugby and France Rugby to produce their equipment.

Since the 2007 South East Asian Football Championships, Nike began its expansion to South-East Asia, to countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.

See Complete list here: Nike sponsorships

Controversies

Corporate ethics

In the documentary, The Corporation, Chris Belmonte, director of the National Labour Committee shows what he says are Nike's internal pricing documents. The documents show the time it takes the workers in a factory in the Dominican Republic to make a shirt in ten thousandths of seconds, with each shirt taking 6.6141 minutes to make, 9 shirts an hour.

Nike has been criticized for contracting with factories that allegedly use sweatshop labor in countries such as China, Vietnam, 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.

The forced labor camp like conditions in some overseas production plants led to several unsuccessful boycotts ^[3], together with coining the alternative name "swooshtika" (a portmanteau of swoosh and swastika) for the company's swoosh logo. ^[4]

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.^[5]

These campaigns have been taken up by many college and universities, especially anti-globalisation groups as well as several anti-sweatshop groups such as the United Students Against Sweatshops. Despite these campaigns, however, Nike's annual revenues have increased from $6.4 billion in 1996 to $15 billion in 2006.

Advertisement controversies

Kasky v. Nike Consumer activist Marc Kasky filed a lawsuit in California regarding newspaper advertisements and letters Nike distributed in response to criticisms of labor conditions in its factories. Kasky claimed that the company made representations that constituted false advertising. Nike responded the false advertising laws did not cover the company's expression of its views on a public issue, and that these were entitled to First Amendment protection. The local court agreed with Nike's lawyers, but the California Supreme Court overturned this ruling, claiming that the corporation's communications were commercial speech and therefore subject to false advertising laws.

The United States Supreme Court agreed to review the case (Nike v. Kasky) but sent the case back to trial court without issuing a substantive ruling on the constitutional issues. The parties subsequently settled out of court before any finding on the accuracy of Nike's statements, leaving the California Supreme Court's denial of Nike's immunity claim as precedent. The case drew a great deal of attention from groups concerned with civil liberties, as well as anti-sweatshop activists. ReclaimDemocracy.org hosts a comprehensive library on the case, including briefs filed by all parties on both sides of the case.

Beatles song Nike has been a focus of criticism for their use of the Beatles song "Revolution 1" in a commercial, against the wishes of Apple Records, the Beatles' recording company. Nike paid $250,000 to Capitol Records Inc., which held the North American licensing rights to the Beatles' recordings, for the right to use the Beatles' rendition for a year.

According to a July 28 1987 article written by the Associated Press, Apple sued Nike Inc., Capitol Records Inc., EMI Records Inc. and Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency for $15 million. Capitol-EMI countered by saying the lawsuit was 'groundless' because Capitol had licensed the use of "Revolution" with the "active support and encouragement of Yoko Ono Lennon, a shareholder and director of Apple."

According to a November 9 1989 article in the Los Angeles Daily News, "a tangle of lawsuits between the Beatles and their American and British record companies has been settled." One condition of the out-of-court settlement was that terms of the agreement would be kept secret. The settlement was reached among the three parties involved: George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr; Yoko Ono; and Apple, EMI and Capitol Records. A spokesman for Yoko Ono noted, "It's such a confusing myriad of issues that even people who have been close to the principals have a difficult time grasping it. Attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic have probably put their children through college on this."

Nike discontinued airing ads featuring "Revolution" in March 1988. Yoko Ono later gave permission to Nike to use John Lennon's "Instant Karma" in another ad.

Minor Threat ad In late June 2005, Nike receives criticism from Ian MacKaye, owner of Dischord Records and front-man of defunct punk band Minor Threat, for appropriating imagery and text from Minor Threat's 1981 self-titled album's cover art in a flyer promoting Nike Skateboarding's 2005 East Coast demo tour. With Minor Threat being emblematic of the punk subculture, and Ian MacKaye being an outspoken champion of true independent music and the DIY ethic, Nike's move to use this imagery struck many as a cynical attempt by a large corporation to target an untapped demographic, undermining what Minor Threat stood for, and what Dischord continues to represent.
On June 27, Nike Skateboarding's website issued an apology to Dischord, Minor Threat, and fans of both and announced that they tried to remove and dispose of all flyers claiming that the people who designed it were skateboarders and Minor Threat fans themselves who created the ad out of respect and appreciation for the band.^[6]

Chinese-themed ad In 2004, an ad about Lebron James beating cartoon martial arts masters in basketball offended Chinese authorites, who called the ad blasphemous and insulting to national dignity. The ad was later banned in China. ^[7]

Relationship with Beaverton

Nike's world headquarters are surrounded by the city of 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.^{[citation needed]}

From Nike's perspective, the company, the only Fortune 500 employer still headquartered in the state of Oregon, 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 (0.3 km²) 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 when 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 of 2005. 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.

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