Incorporated: 1968 as BRS, Inc.
NAIC: 316219 Other Footwear Manufacturing; 339920 Sporting and Athletic Goods Manufacturing; 422340 Footwear Wholesalers; 448190 Other Clothing Stores; 448210 Shoe Stores
Founded as an importer of Japanese shoes, NIKE, Inc. (Nike) has grown to be the world's largest marketer of athletic footwear, holding a global market share of approximately 37 percent. In the United States, Nike products are sold through about 22,000 retail accounts; worldwide, the company's products are sold in more than 160 countries. Both domestically and overseas Nike operates retail stores, including NikeTowns and factory outlets. Nearly all of the items are manufactured by independent contractors, primarily located overseas, with Nike involved in the design, development, and marketing. In addition to its wide range of core athletic shoes and apparel marketed under the flagship Nike brand, the company also sells footwear under the Converse, Chuck Taylor, All Star, and Jack Purcell brands through wholly owned subsidiary Converse Inc. and sells under the brands Starter, Shaq, and Asphalt in the discount retailer channel through another subsidiary, Exeter Brands Group LLC. The firm also sells Nike and Bauer brand athletic equipment; Hurley surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding apparel and footwear; and Cole Haan brand dress and casual footwear. Nike has relied on consistent innovation in the design of its products and heavy promotion to fuel its growth in both U.S. and foreign markets. The ubiquitous presence of the Nike brand and its Swoosh trademark led to a backlash against the company by the late 20th century, particularly in relation to allegations of low wages and poor working conditions at the company's Asian contract manufacturers.
Nike's precursor originated in 1962, a product of the imagination of Philip H. Knight, a Stanford University business graduate who had been a member of the track team as an undergraduate at the University of Oregon. Traveling in Japan after finishing business school, Knight got in touch with a Japanese firm that made athletic shoes, the Onitsuka Tiger Co., and arranged to import some of its products to the United States on a small scale. Knight was convinced that Japanese running shoes could become significant competitors for the German products that then dominated the American market. In the course of setting up his agreement with Onitsuka Tiger, Knight invented Blue Ribbon Sports to satisfy his Japanese partner's expectations that he represented an actual company, and this hypothetical firm eventually grew to become Nike, Inc.
At the end of 1963, Knight's arrangements in Japan came to fruition when he took delivery of 200 pairs of Tiger athletic shoes, which he stored in his father's basement and peddled at various track meets in the area. Knight's one-man venture became a partnership in the following year, when his former track coach, William Bowerman, chipped in $500 to equal Knight's investment. Bowerman had long been experimenting with modified running shoes for his team, and he worked with runners to improve the designs of prototype Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) shoes. Innovation in running shoe design eventually would become a cornerstone of the company's continued expansion and success. Bowerman's efforts first paid off in 1968, when a shoe known as the Cortez, which he had designed, became a big seller.
BRS sold 1,300 pairs of Japanese running shoes in 1964, its first year, to gross $8,000. By 1965 the fledgling company had acquired a full-time employee and sales had reached $20,000. The following year, the company rented its first retail space, next to a beauty salon in Santa Monica, California, so that its few employees could stop selling shoes out of their cars. In 1967 with fast-growing sales, BRS expanded operations to the East Coast, opening a distribution office in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Bowerman's innovations in running shoe technology continued throughout this time. A shoe with the upper portion made of nylon went into development in 1967, and the following year Bowerman and another employee came up with the Boston shoe, which incorporated the first cushioned midsole throughout the entire length of an athletic shoe. Also in 1968 the company was incorporated as BRS, Inc.
By the end of the decade, Knight's venture had expanded to include several stores and 20 employees and sales were nearing $300,000. The company was poised for greater growth, but Knight was frustrated by a lack of capital to pay for expansion. In 1971, using financing from the Japanese trading company Nissho Iwai Corporation, BRS was able to manufacture its own line of products overseas, through independent contractors, for import to the United States. At this time, the company introduced its Swoosh trademark and the brand name Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. These new symbols were initially affixed to a soccer shoe, the first Nike product to be sold.
A year later, BRS broke with its old Japanese partner, Onitsuka Tiger, after a disagreement over distribution, and kicked off promotion of its own products at the 1972 U.S. Olympic Trials, the first of many marketing campaigns that would seek to attach Nike's name and fortunes to the careers of well-known athletes. Nike shoes were geared to the serious athlete, and their high performance carried with it a high price.
In their first year of distribution, the company's new products grossed $1.96 million and the corporate staff swelled to 45. In addition, operations were expanded to Canada, the company's first foreign market, which would be followed by Australia, in 1974.
Bowerman continued his innovations in running-shoe design with the introduction of the Moon shoe in 1972, which had a waffle-like sole that had first been formed by molding rubber on a household waffle iron. This sole increased the traction of the shoe without adding weight.
In 1974 BRS opened its first U.S. plant, in Exeter, New Hampshire. The company's payroll swelled to 250, and worldwide sales neared $5 million by the end of 1974. This growth was fueled in part by aggressive promotion of the Nike brand name. The company sought to expand its visibility by having its shoes worn by prominent athletes, including tennis players Ilie Nastase and Jimmy Connors. At the 1976 Olympic Trials these efforts began to pay off as Nike shoes were worn by rising athletic stars.
The company's growth had truly begun to take off by this time, riding the boom in popularity of jogging that took place in the United States in the late 1970s. BRS revenues tripled in two years to $14 million in 1976, and then doubled in just one year to $28 million in 1977. To keep up with demand, the company opened new factories, adding a stitching plant in Maine and additional overseas production facilities in Taiwan and Korea. International sales were expanded when markets in Asia were opened in 1977 and in South America the following year. European distributorships were lined up in 1978.
Nike continued its promotional activities with the opening of Athletics West, a training club for Olympic hopefuls in track and field, and by signing tennis player John McEnroe to an endorsement contract. In 1978 the company changed its name to Nike, Inc. The company expanded its line of products that year, adding athletic shoes for children.
By 1979 Nike sold almost half the running shoes bought in the United States, and the company moved into a new world headquarters building in Beaverton, Oregon. In addition to its shoe business, the company began to make and market a line of sports clothing, and the Nike Air shoe cushioning device was introduced.
By the start of the 1980s, Nike's combination of groundbreaking design and savvy and aggressive marketing had allowed it to surpass the German athletic shoe company adidas AG, formerly the leader in U.S. sales. In December 1980, Nike went public, offering two million shares of stock. With the revenues generated by the stock sale, the company planned continued expansion, particularly in the European market. In the United States, plans for a new headquarters on a large, rural campus were inaugurated, and an East Coast distribution center in Greenland, New Hampshire, was brought on line. In addition, the company bought a large plant in Exeter, New Hampshire, to house the Nike Sport Research and Development Lab and also to provide for more domestic manufacturing capacity. The company had shifted its overseas production away from Japan at this point, manufacturing nearly four-fifths of its shoes in South Korea and Taiwan. It established factories in mainland China in 1981.
By the following year, when the jogging craze in the United States had started to wane, half of the running shoes bought in the United States bore the Nike trademark. The company was well insulated from the effects of a stagnating demand for running shoes, however, because it gained a substantial share of its sales from other types of athletic shoes, notably basketball shoes and tennis shoes. In addition, Nike benefited from strong sales of its other product lines, which included apparel, work and leisure shoes, and children's shoes.
Given slowing growth in the U.S. market, however, the company turned its attention to foreign markets, inaugurating Nike International, Ltd. in 1981 to spearhead the company's push into Europe and Japan, as well as into Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In Europe, Nike faced stiff competition from adidas and Puma, which had a stronghold on the soccer market, Europe's largest athletic shoe category. The company opened a factory in Ireland to enable it to distribute its shoes without paying high import tariffs, and in 1981 bought out its distributors in England and Austria, to strengthen its control over marketing and distribution of its products. In 1982 the company outfitted Aston Villa, the winning team in the English and European Cup soccer championships, giving a boost to promotion of its new soccer shoe.
In Japan, Nike allied itself with Nissho Iwai, the sixth largest Japanese trading company, to form Nike-Japan Corporation. Because Nike already held a part of the low-priced athletic shoe market, the company set its sights on the high-priced end of the scale in Japan.
By 1982 the company's line of products included more than 200 different kinds of shoes, including the Air Force I, a basketball shoe, and its companion shoe for racquet sports, the Air Ace, the latest models in the long line of innovative shoe designs that had pushed Nike's earnings to an average annual increase of almost 100 percent. In addition, the company marketed more than 200 different items of clothing. By 1983, when the company posted its first ever quarterly drop in earnings as the running boom peaked and went into a decline, Nike's leaders were looking to the apparel division, as well as overseas markets, for further expansion. In foreign sales, the company had mixed results. Its operations in Japan were almost immediately profitable, and the company quickly jumped to second place in the Japanese market, but in Europe, Nike fared less well, losing money on its five European subsidiaries.
Faced with an 11.5 percent drop in domestic sales of its shoes in the 1984 fiscal year, Nike moved away from its traditional marketing strategy of support for sporting events and athlete endorsements to a wider-reaching approach, investing more than $10 million in its first national television and magazine advertising campaign. This followed the "Cities Campaign," which used billboards and murals in nine American cities to publicize Nike products in the period before the 1984 Olympics. Despite the strong showing of athletes wearing Nike shoes in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games, Nike profits were down almost 30 percent for the fiscal year ending in May 1984, although international sales were robust and overall sales rose slightly. This decline was a result of aggressive price discounting on Nike products and the increased costs associated with the company's push into foreign markets and attempts to build up its sales of apparel.
Earnings continued to fall in the next three quarters as the company lost market share, posting profits of only $7.8 million at the end of August 1984, a loss of $2.2 million three months later, and another loss of $2.1 million at the end of February 1985. In response, Nike adopted a series of measures to change its sliding course. The company cut back on the number of shoes it had sitting in warehouses and also attempted to fine-tune its corporate mission by cutting back on the number of products it marketed. It made plans to reduce the line of Nike shoes by 30 percent within a year and a half. In addition, leadership at the top of the company was streamlined, as founder Knight resumed the post of president, which he had relinquished in 1983, in addition to his duties as chairman and chief executive officer. Overall administrative costs were also reduced. As part of this effort, Nike also consolidated its research and marketing branches, closing its facility in Exeter, New Hampshire, and cutting 75 of the plant's 125 employees. Overall, the company laid off about 400 workers during 1984.
Faced with shifting consumer interests (i.e., the U.S. market move from jogging to aerobics), the company created a new products division in 1985 to help keep pace. In addition, Nike purchased Pro-form, a small maker of weightlifting equipment, as part of its plan to profit from all aspects of the fitness movement. The company was restructured further at the end of 1985 when its last two U.S. factories were closed and its previous divisions of apparel and athletic shoes were rearranged by sport. In a move that would prove to be the key to the company's recovery, in 1985 the company signed basketball player Michael Jordan to endorse a new version of its Air shoe, introduced four years earlier. The new basketball shoes bore the name "Air Jordan."
In early 1986 Nike announced expansion into a number of new lines, including casual apparel for women, a less expensive line of athletic shoes called Street Socks, golf shoes, and tennis gear marketed under the name "Wimbledon." By mid-1986 Nike was reporting that its earnings had begun to increase again, with sales topping $1 billion for the first time. At that point, the company sold its 51 percent stake in Nike-Japan to its Japanese partner; six months later, Nike laid off 10 percent of its U.S. employees at all levels in a major cost-cutting strategy.
Following these moves, Nike announced a drop in revenues and earnings in 1987, and another round of restructuring and budget cuts ensued, as the company attempted to come to grips with the continuing evolution of the U.S. fitness market. Only Nike's innovative Air athletic shoes provided a bright spot in the company's otherwise erratic progress, allowing the company to regain market share from rival Reebok International Ltd. in several areas, including basketball and cross-training.
The following year, Nike branched out from athletic shoes, purchasing Cole Haan, a maker of casual and dress shoes, for $80 million. Advertising heavily, the company took a commanding lead in sales to young people to claim 23 percent of the overall athletic shoe market. Profits rebounded to reach $100 million in 1988, as sales rose 37 percent to $1.2 billion. Later that year, Nike launched a $10 million television campaign around the theme "Just Do It" and announced that its 1989 advertising budget would reach $45 million.
In 1989 Nike unveiled several new lines of shoes and led its market with $1.7 billion in sales, yielding profits of $167 million. The company's product innovation continued, including the introduction of a basketball shoe with an inflatable collar around the ankle, sold under the brand name Air Pressure. In addition, Nike continued its aggressive marketing, using ads featuring Michael Jordan and actor-director Spike Lee, the ongoing "Just Do It" campaign, and the "Bo Knows" television spots featuring athlete Bo Jackson. At the end of 1989, the company began relocation to its newly constructed headquarters campus in Beaverton, Oregon.
In 1990 the company sued two competitors for copying the patented designs of its shoes and found itself engaged in a dispute with the U.S. Customs Service over import duties on its Air Jordan basketball shoes. In 1990 the company's revenues hit $2 billion. The company acquired Tetra Plastics Inc., producers of plastic film for shoe soles. That year, the company opened NikeTown, a prototype store selling the full range of Nike products, in Portland, Oregon.
By 1991 Nike's Visible Air shoes had enabled it to surpass its rival Reebok in the U.S. market. In the fiscal year ending May 31, 1991, Nike sales surpassed the $3 billion mark, fueled by record sales of 41 million pairs of Nike Air shoes and a booming international market. Its efforts to conquer Europe had begun to bear fruit; business there grew by 100 percent that year, producing more than $1 billion in sales and gaining the second place market share behind Adidas. Nike's U.S. shoe market had, in large part, matured, slowing to 5 percent annual growth, down from 15 percent annual growth from 1980 and 1988. The company began eyeing overseas markets and predicted ample room to grow in Europe. Nike's U.S. rival Reebok, however, also saw potential for growth in Europe, and by 1992 European MTV was glutted with athletic shoe advertisements as the battle for the youth market heated up between Nike, Reebok, and their European competitors, Adidas and Puma.
Nike also saw growth potential in its women's shoe and sports apparel division. In February 1992 Nike began a $13 million print and television advertising pitch for its women's segment, built upon its "Dialogue" print campaign, which had been slowly wooing 18- to 34-year-old women since 1990. Sales of Nike women's apparel lines Fitness Essentials, Elite Aerobics, Physical Elements, and All Condition Gear increased by 25 percent in both 1990 and 1991 and jumped by 68 percent in 1992.
In July 1992 Nike opened its second NikeTown retail store in Chicago. Like its predecessor in Portland, the Chicago NikeTown was designed to "combine the fun and excitement of FAO Schwartz, the Smithsonian Institute and Disneyland in a space that will entertain sports and fitness fans from around the world" as well as provide a high-profile retail outlet for Nike's rapidly expanding lines of footwear and clothing.
Nike celebrated its 20th anniversary in 1992, virtually debt free and with company revenues of $3.4 billion. Gross profits jumped $100 million in that year, fueled by soaring sales in its retail division, which expanded to include 30 Nike-owned discount outlets and the two NikeTowns. To celebrate its anniversary, Nike brought out its old slogan "There is no finish line." As if to underscore that sentiment, Nike Chairman Philip Knight announced massive plans to remake the company with the goal of being "the best sports and fitness company in the world." To fulfill that goal, the company set the ground plans for a complicated yet innovative marketing structure seeking to make the Nike brand into a worldwide megabrand along the lines of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sony, and Disney.
Nike continued expansion of its high-profile NikeTown chain, opening outlets in Atlanta, Georgia, in the spring of 1993 and Costa Mesa, California, later that year. Also in 1993, as part of its long-term marketing strategy, Nike began an ambitious venture with Mike Ovitz's Creative Artists Agency to organize and package sports events under the Nike name, a move that potentially led the company into competition with sports management giants such as ProServ, IMG, and Advantage International.
Nike also began a more controversial venture into the arena of sports agents, negotiating contracts for basketball's Scottie Pippin, Alonzo Mourning, and others in addition to retaining athletes such as Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley as company spokespersons. Nike's influence in the world of sports grew to such a degree that in 1993 Sporting News dubbed Knight the most powerful man in sports.
Critics contended that Nike's influence ran too deep, having its hand in negotiating everything in an athlete's life from investments to the choice of an apartment. But Nike's marketing executives saw it as part of a campaign to create an image of Nike not just as a product line but as a lifestyle, a "Nike attitude."
Nearly everyone agreed, however, that Nike was the dominant force in athletic footwear in the early to mid-1990s. The company held about 30 percent of the U.S. market by 1995, far outdistancing the 20 percent of its nearest rival, Reebok. Overseas revenues continued their steady rise, reaching nearly $2 billion by 1995, about 40 percent of the overall total. Not content with its leading position in athletic shoes and its growing sales of athletic apparel, which accounted for more than 30 percent of revenues in 1996, Nike branched out into sports equipment in the mid-1990s. In 1994 the company acquired Canstar Sports Inc., the leading maker of skates and hockey equipment in the world, for $400 million. Canstar was renamed Bauer Nike Hockey Inc., Bauer being Canstar's brand name for its equipment. Two years later Bauer Nike became part of the newly formed Nike equipment division, which aimed to extend the company into the marketing of sport balls, protective gear, eyewear, and watches. Also during this period, Nike signed its next superstar spokesperson, Tiger Woods. In 1995, at the age of 20, Woods agreed to a 20-year, $40 million endorsement contract. The golf phenom went on to win an inordinate number of tournaments, often shattering course records, and was on pace to eclipse golf legend Jack Nicklaus's illustrious lifetime record of winning 18 majors, more than validating the blockbuster contract.
For the fiscal year ending in May 1997, Nike earned a record $795.8 million on record revenues of $9.19 billion. Overseas sales played a large role in the 42 percent increase in revenues from 1996 to 1997. Sales in Asia increased by more than $500 million (to $1.24 billion), while European sales surged ahead by $450 million. Back home, Nike's share of the U.S. athletic shoe market neared 50 percent. The picture at Nike soon turned sour, however, as the Asian financial crisis that erupted in the summer of 1997 sent sneaker sales in that region plunging. By 1999, sales in Asia had dropped to $844.5 million. Compounding the company's troubles was a concurrent stagnation of sales in its domestic market, where the fickle tastes of teenagers began turning away from athletic shoes to hiking boots and other casual "brown shoes." As a result, overall sales for 1999 fell to $8.78 billion. Profits were falling as well, including a net loss of $67.7 million for the fourth quarter of 1998, the company's first reported loss in more than 13 years. The decline in net income led to a cost-cutting drive that included the layoff of 5 percent of the workforce, or 1,200 people, in 1998, and the slashing of its budget for sports star endorsements by $100 million that same year.
Nike was also dogged throughout the late 1990s by protests and boycotts over allegations regarding the treatment of workers at the contract factories in Asia that employed nearly 400,000 people and that made the bulk of Nike shoes and much of its apparel. Charges included abuse of workers, poor working conditions, low wages, and use of child labor. Nike's initial reaction, which was highlighted by Knight's insistence that the company had little control over its suppliers, resulted in waves of negative publicity. Protesters included church groups, students at universities that had apparel and footwear contracts with Nike, and socially conscious investment funds. Nike finally announced in mid-1998 a series of changes affecting its contract workforce in Asia, including an increase in the minimum age, a tightening of air quality standards, and a pledge to allow independent inspections of factories. Nike nonetheless remained under pressure from activists into the 21st century. Nike, along with McDonald's Corporation, the Coca-Cola Company, and Starbucks Corporation, among others, also became an object of protest from those who were attacking multinational companies that pushed global brands. This undercurrent of hostility burst into the spotlight in late 1999 when some of the more aggressive protesters against a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle attempted to storm a NikeTown outlet.
Seeking to recapture the growth of the early to mid-1990s, Nike pursued a number of new initiatives in the late 1990s. Having initially missed out on the trend toward extreme sports (such as skateboarding, mountain biking, and snowboarding), Nike attempted to rectify this miscue by establishing a unit called ACG, short for "all-conditions gear," in 1998. Two years later, the company created a new division called Techlab to market a line of sports-technology accessories, such as a digital audio player, a high-altitude wrist compass, and a portable heart-rate monitor. Both of these initiatives were aimed at capturing sales from the emerging Generation Y demographic group. In early 1999 Nike began selling its shoes and other products directly to consumers via the company web site. The company finally earned some good publicity in 1999 when it sponsored the U.S. national women's soccer team that won the Women's World Cup. In December 1999 Nike cofounder Bowerman died, and the company later introduced a line of running shoes in his honor.
Nike's struggles continued into the early 2000s, but by 2002 the company appeared to have turned a corner. Surprisingly, the turnaround stemmed in large part not from clever marketing or new high-tech sneakers but from concentrating more attention on the more mundane aspects of running a business, such as investing in start-of-the-art information systems, logistics, and supply-chain management. Equally important was Knight's willingness to cede more control of the company to a number of underlings, some recruited from the outside. Donald W. Blair was brought onboard from PepsiCo, Inc. to become chief financial officer in 1999 after Nike inexplicably had been without a CFO for two years. In 2001 Knight named two longtime company insiders, Mark G. Parker and Charles D. Denson, as copresidents with responsibility for day-to-day operations. On the product side, Nike successfully overhauled its apparel operations, garnered surging sales of its golf equipment after Woods began using Nike golf balls in 2000, and made a big push in the soccer shoe market, where it gained the top spot among European soccer shoe buyers, leapfrogging over Adidas, by 2003. Nike also continued to score endorsement coups, inking high school basketball phenom LeBron James to a $90 million contract in 2003.
The Nike comeback also centered around a commitment to lessen its dependence on the volatile market for high-performance shoes by owning a portfolio of brands covering different market sectors and price points. In 2002 the company bought Hurley International, a teen lifestyle brand, for an estimated $95 million. Based in Costa Mesa, California, Hurley was a designer and distributor of action sports apparel and footwear for surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding. Nike next bought Converse Inc. for $305 million in September 2003. The 95-year-old Converse of North Andover, Massachusetts, was best known for its retro, low-tech Chuck Taylor All-Star sneakers, a product that for many teenagers and young adults had come to be viewed as the very antithesis of everything Nike. Converse's management team remained in place following the takeover, with the company operating as an autonomous subsidiary. In August 2004 Nike bought Official Starter Properties LLC and Official Starter LLC for approximately $47 million. These companies marketed athletic apparel, footwear, and accessories under the Starter, Team Starter, Asphalt, Shaq, and Dunkman brands (the latter two featuring NBA star Shaquille O'Neal), primarily through discount chains such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. These brands were placed within a new wholly owned subsidiary, Exeter Brands Group LLC, focusing on developing products for value-conscious consumers.
While these acquisitions were unfolding in the United States, Nike was pushing hard into overseas markets, and by 2003 international sales exceeded domestic sales for the first time. Starting in 2002 the company also concentrated on building an extensive program to address the perennial charges of labor exploitation. Nike began allowing a monitoring organization it had cofounded, the Fair Labor Association, to conduct random factory inspections. It also built an in-house staff of approximately 100 employees to inspect hundreds of factories and grade them on labor standards. In early 2005 Nike took an unprecedented step toward greater transparency by issuing a list of its more than 700 contract factories. Such moves provided the basis for an improving relationship between Nike and its critics. There were even a few cases in which activists worked with the company to resolve specific issues at certain factories.
Nike enjoyed record results in the fiscal year ending in May 2004, posting profits of $945.6 million on revenues of $12.25 billion. Profits surged past the $1 billion mark the next year, hitting $1.21 billion, while revenues jumped to a new high of $13.74 billion. Late in 2004 Knight stepped aside from his executive position, while remaining chairman, to bring William D. Perez onboard as president and CEO. Perez, a marathon runner and avid golfer, was hired away from S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., the family-controlled consumer products company, where he spent 34 years and rose to the top as president and CEO. His vast international experience was expected to help Nike as it continued its expansion abroad, and Perez was known as an excellent marketer with a stellar reputation of acquiring and managing well-known brands. Within months of Perez's appointment, Nike's need for such an experienced hand appeared to grow when adidas-Salomon AG agreed to buy Reebok International Ltd. for approximately $3.8 billion. The deal, announced in August 2005, promised to combine two of Nike's biggest rivals, giving the newly enlarged company about 30 percent of the worldwide athletic footwear market, compared to Nike's 37 percent. A revitalized Nike nevertheless seemed to have the strategies in place to fend off this new threat and stay on top of the global sneaker heap.
Principal Subsidiaries
Bauer Nike Hockey Inc.; Cole Haan Holdings Incorporated; Converse Inc.; Hurley International LLC; Exeter Brands Group LLC.
Principal Competitors
Reebok International Ltd.; adidas-Salomon AG; Fila USA, Inc.; PUMA AG Rudolf Dassler Sport; Skechers U.S.A., Inc.
Further Reading
Buell, Barbara, "Nike Catches Up with the Trendy Frontrunner," Business Week, October 24, 1988, p. 88.
Collingwood, Harris, "Nike Rushes in Where Reebok Used to Tread," Business Week, October 3, 1988, p. 42.
Dash, Eric, "Founder of Nike to Hand Off Job to a New Chief," The New York Times, November 19, 2004, p. C1.
Dowdell, Stephen, "No Finish Line," Footwear News, November 25, 2002, p. 12.
Eales, Roy, "Is Nike a Long Distance Runner?," Multinational Business, 1986, pp. 9+.
"Fitting the World in Sport Shoes," Business Week, January 25, 1982.
Gallagher, Leigh, "Rebound," Forbes, May 3, 1999, p. 60.
Gilley, Bruce, "Sweating It Out," Far Eastern Economic Review, December 10, 1998, pp. 66-67.
Gold, Jacqueline S., "The Marathon Man?," Financial World, February 16, 1993, p. 32.
Grimm, Matthew, "Nike Vision," Brandweek, March 29, 1993, p. 19.
Heins, John, "Looking for That Strong Finish," Forbes, May 4, 1987, pp. 74+.
Holmes, Stanley, "The New Nike," Business Week, September 20, 2004, pp. 78-82, 84, 86.
Holmes, Stanley, and Christine Tierney, "How Nike Got Its Game Back," Business Week, November 4, 2002, pp. 129-31.
Jenkins, Holman W., Jr., "The Rise and Stumble of Nike," Wall Street Journal, June 3, 1998, p. A19.
Kang, Stephanie, and Joann S. Lublin, "Nike Taps Perez of S.C. Johnson to Follow Knight," Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2004, p. A3.
Katz, Donald R., Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World, New York: Random House, 1994, 336 p.
"Kennel Mates: Nike Bites into Fogdog Ownership," Sporting Goods Business, October 11, 1999, p. 10.
Klein, Naomi, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2000, 490 p.
Labich, Kenneth, "Nike vs. Reebok: A Battle for Hearts, Minds, and Feet," Fortune, September 18, 1995, pp. 90+.
LaFeber, Walter, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism, rev. ed., New York: Norton, 2002, 220 p.
Lane, Randall, "You Are What You Wear," Forbes 400, October 14, 1996, pp. 42-46.
Lee, Louise, "Can Nike Still Do It?," Business Week, February 21, 2000, pp. 120-22+.
Loftus, Margaret, "A Swoosh Under Siege," U.S. News and World Report, April 12, 1999, p. 40.
McGill, Douglas C., "Nike Is Bounding Past Reebok," The New York Times, July 11, 1989, p. D1.
Murphy, Terence, "Nike on the Rebound," Madison Avenue, June 1985, pp. 28+.
"Nike Pins Hopes for Growth on Foreign Sales and Apparel," New York Times, March 24, 1983.
"Nike Sports Shoes: Winged Victory," Economist, December 2, 1989, pp. 83+.
"Nike Versus Reebok: A Foot Race," Newsweek, October 3, 1988, p. 52.
Richards, Bill, "Just Doing It: Nike Plans to Swoosh into Sports Equipment but It's a Tough Game," Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1998, pp. A1+.
------, "Tripped Up by Too Many Shoes, Nike Regroups," Wall Street Journal, March 3, 1998, p. B1.
Robson, Douglas, "Just Do ... Something," Business Week, July 2, 2001, pp. 70-71.
Roth, Daniel, "Can Nike Still Do It Without Phil Knight?," Fortune, April 4, 2005, pp. 59-62, 64, 66, 68.
Saporito, Bill, "Can Nike Get Unstuck?," Time, March 30, 1998, pp. 48-53.
Sellers, Patricia, "Four Reasons Nike's Not Cool," Fortune, March 30, 1998, pp. 26-27.
Steinhauer, Jennifer, "Nike Is in a League of Its Own: With No Big Rival, It Calls the Shots in Athletic Shoes," The New York Times, June 7, 1997, Sec. 1, p. 31.
Strasser, J.B., and Laurie Becklund, Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike, and the Men Who Played There, San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991, 682 p.
Stroud, Ruth, "Nike Ready to Run a More Traditional Race," Advertising Age, June 18, 1984, pp. 4+.
Tharp, Mike, "Easy-Going Nike Adopts Stricter Controls to Pump Up Its Athletic-Apparel Business," Wall Street Journal, November 6, 1984.
Thurow, Roger, "Shtick Ball: In Global Drive, Nike Finds Its Brash Ways Don't Always Pay Off," Wall Street Journal, May 5, 1997, pp. A1+.
Tkacik, Maureen, "Nike to Swoosh Up Old-Line Converse for $305 Million," Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2003, p. A3.
------, "Rubber Match: In a Clash of Sneaker Titans, Nike Gets Leg Up on Foot Locker," Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2003, p. A1.
"Where Nike and Reebok Have Plenty of Running Room," Business Week, March 11, 1991.
Williams, Christopher C., "The Now and Future King," Barron's, June 13, 2005, pp. 18, 20.
Wrighton, Jo, and Fred R. Bleakley, "Philip Knight of Nike--Just Do It!," Institutional Investor, January 2000, pp. 22-24.
Wyatt, John, "Is It Time to Jump on Nike?," Fortune, May 26, 1997, pp. 185-86.
Yang, Dori Jones, et al., "Can Nike Just Do It?," Business Week, April 18, 1994, pp. 86-90.
— Elizabeth Rourke; Maura Troester; Updated by David E. Salamie
