Tag: Nike

Very interesting take from sports journalist Jason Whitlock on why the NBA is kowtowing to the Chinese government:

FOX Sports 1 journalist Jason Whitlock connects the dots on how Nike influences the NBA and the athletic apparel company’s relationship with China.

“I’m going to try to explain this,” Whitlock said Friday on FNC’s ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’ “It’s very simple actually. Nike is in control of basketball — the NBA, college basketball, high school. Nike is the real person driving this conversation in this thing with China. If you go back to — and I’m going to connect it to politics — in 2015, in May of 2015, President Barack Obama went to Nike’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon and announced his defense of the TPP – Trans-Pacific Partnership.”

“A deal that was going to be very favorable for Nike, for China,” he said. “Who is the President that came after Obama and walked America away from the TPP? Donald Trump. Who is the shoe company that employs LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and these other athletes that smear Donald Trump as racist? Who are the people constantly criticizing Donald Trump? NBA, Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich.”

“The NBA answers to Nike,” Whitlock declared. “Nike is a $40 billion business. The NBA is an $8 billion business. President Obama, the basketball President, friendly relationship with the NBA, went to Nike’s headquarters to announce his defense of the TPP.”

“This thing is very simple. This is about money,” he said. 

“This is about a President that won’t cooperate with what Nike wants done,” Whitlock said on FNC. “Nike is using the NBA and its leverage over the NBA to go after this guy because they disagree with him about his policies as it relates to trade in China. It’s very simple.”

Real Clear Politics

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I wonder how much not selling this shoe in South Korea impacts Nike’s bottom line?  I would think not much considering they are moving forward with the sale of this shoe world wide.  It seems to me that they will have problems trying to sell this shoe in China as well:

A professor at a university in Korea has sent a letter of protest to key executives at Nike about its iconic Michael Jordan shoes, calling for the sportswear giant to stop using the Japanese Rising Sun flag as a design on its sneakers.

Professor Seo Kyoung-duk at Sungshin Women’s University, who is also a dedicated Dokdo campaigner, said Thursday that he sent the letter to Nike President and CEO Mark Parker, Vice President for Design Tinker Hatfield, six other executives of the company and also Jordan.

He said the multinational market player and its high-profile shoes should consider the overwhelming impact of its products on young people worldwide.

This is the third time for the company to use the flag’s design on their shoes, a symbol of Japan’s militarism and imperialism in the late 19th and 20th centuries, despite criticism here in Korea, with the previous incidents occurring in 2009 and 2013.

“I wanted to let the company know what it did was wrong and why,” he said. “I would like to encourage the executives to avoid making the same mistakes in the future by helping them realize their insensitivity, indifference, and ignorance of historical facts.”

Alongside the letter, he sent a picture and video footage in English explaining that Japan’s Rising Sun flag symbolizes Japan’s wartime atrocities like the Hakenkreuz, or swastika, the symbol used by the Nazi Party in Germany.  [The Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.