Believe in something
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Companies have their finger on the pulse of America better than politicians do. Particularly younger generations. I thought the Serena Williams campaign was really good, but this takes it up another notch.
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@DanR oh boy!
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Not sure why they would use him as the face of an ad campaign but it’s whatever. Don’t know that I get the whole lose everything ether, he was already benched and not going to be resigned. He has become more famous for his off the field stuff than his on the field. We’ll have to see how it works out I reckon, I don’t know that it really bothers me or that I really care to be honest.
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I’m not a fan of conflating his efforts with the Evil Nike Empire. You could argue that it’s the easiest way to shape public opinion and while the easiest way is not the best way, it is much easier. Once you go commercial it feels like the beginning of the end of your original effort. The term “sellout” comes to mind. Maybe that’s unrealistic?
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This cannot possibly have been made for marketing reasons; no marketing person in his or her right mind would think that alienating more than half of your target audience is a good move and several interviews with people in the marketing business I have seen and read pretty much indicated the same thing; needless to say, there are many groups that think is a great move. It looks like it was done solely for political reasons and it might backfire big time. Maybe this will be the start of a loss of influence by Nike in the recruiting world and help Adidas???
For the record, I don’t own any Nike product so if it loses or gains any market share does not affect me at all.
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Stock down 3% today.
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I think Nike looked at their demographic and realized that younger people are largely more in support of Kaepernick, while older people are more decidedly against. Now obviously, that paints with a pretty broad brush, because there are lots of young people that do not support Kaepernick, and there are lots of older people that do support him. But when you look at the general population, older people are the ones that will be more upset about this, and they are less likely to be the target demographic of an athletic apparel company.
I doubt it hurts Nike much long term. Their stock price fell with this ad coming out, but will probably recover if their sales stay strong (likely since they are the official apparel for most NCAA schools and many high schools. For most, these are multi-year agreements, so they cannot simply drop Nike due to this ad campaign. That means that even if these schools decide to change later on, that effect may not take place for a few years. I doubt any high schools or colleges are burning all of their team uniforms since they would just have to turn around and purchase them from Nike for this week’s games.
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I read an article that adidas was considering using kap for a marketing campaign, but Nike beat them to it. Instead of burning your gear, donate it to the less fortunate.
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No way Adidas could have used him since he was all along and is still under contract with Nike and Nike just extended his contract through 2022.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Nice link, and a nice block at the rim of the (errant) mansplaining shot. The link within that one to the yahoo article about people lighting their Nike stuff on fire is hysterical!
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The salient sentence in the article is…Talks between Kaepernick and the executive’s shoe company never materialized…
Sounds to me like a bunch of executives speculating over drinks and getting Nike to make what it could turn out to be a costly mistake.
Here is a better logo for their campaign…
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Yeah…
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Someone did the math for Nike.
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Key sentences from the article that @Kcmatt7 posted:
The company also knows its customers. Two-thirds are younger than 35, and it’s an ethnically diverse consumer base, according to NPD Group.
That demographic tends to view Kaepernick more favorably than the older, less diverse population.
There were a lot of people that said NFL teams were making a business decision by freezing out the kneeling players. Nike is doing the same thing on the opposite side.
Additionally, there’s this article with the following quote:
There is reason to believe that Kaepernick, despite not playing, will move merchandise. During the second quarter of 2017, his officially licensed jersey was the 39th-best selling in the league. As an unsigned free agent, he was the only player in the top 50 of those rankings not signed to a team.
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@approxinfinity I haven’t bought anything Nike in several years, my mowing shoes are Nike lol. This definitely wouldn’t force me to not purchase their products, I’m with you on them being the original evil empire on sports. I don’t know that I believe the rhetoric of “believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything” from him because of what I stated above, he had offers to be a back Up QB in the league and declined them. I wouldn’t pay him starter money at this point ether. If I was the Dolphins I’d try to sign him because he could be better than who they they have but doubt he’d take it. He seems more interest in trying to milk out his fame in other ways. Hopefully Nike is willing to put money up to help single income families, that’s where it starts IMO. The crap neighborhoods I’ve lived in that was the common denominator not race. I do appreciate Colin being man enough to donate to the cause. The whole burning of Nike or other products is wasteful and stupid, never understood that. If I really hated something like that I’d sell it or donate it as a foster parent I can assure you there are plenty of kids that need clothes and shoes out there.
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I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around whether this is a good or bad thing. It seems that moving to the mainstream and monetizing the protest brand will bring apathy. I haven’t gone to the links people posted but unless money actually goes to meaningful places because of this, as @kjayhawks noted, this feels like a net bad thing.
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@approxinfinity remember the crap Serena has gone thru too!
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Remember that the older people are the ones with the disposable income to buy the high end gear. Regardless, even if two thirds of its base is sympathetic, can they really afford to write off the one third that is not? Even if 10 percent of the base stops buying Nike products, no amount of gear Kaepernick sells can make up for that.
As I said, I don’t own Nike gear so I don’t really count on their balance sheet; however, if Facebook is an indication, a fair number of my friends who spend a fair amount of money on sports gear indicated they will stop buying it.
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@JayHawkFanToo same with most of my friends on FB. I just wonder what Nike was hoping to gain, the NFL has seen drops in viewership for the same stuff.
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As they say…follow the money…
This article presents a very interesting and plausible perspective of the real reason behind Nike’s campaign.
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@JayHawkFanToo Interesting, but not plausible. Essentially, the article states that China will subsidize Nike and Levi Strauss and others to take political stances domestically that undermine Trump and thereby his trade sanctions.
The contractual arrangements are interesting. But the author simply notes that the companies are adopting a couple of marketing policies that might not appeal to some Americans (ignoring the possible growth with other Americans).
The rest is merely conjecture.
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The real sacrifice are the thousands of Chinese women making .20 an hour, working 80 hours a week in horrible conditions so Nike can pay Kap millions of dollars. The hypocrisy is profound. Just my opinion- you won’t change my opinion, and I know I won’t change yours.
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@KUSTEVE I don’t know if your comment is to me or not, but I do want to go on record as abhoring Nike’s labor policies. I have never bought a Nike product and never will. I suspect that the money to Kap, however, will largely likely go to many of the causes he has funded with, I believe, millions of dollars. So, while it might be paid to him by a sweat shop, that money might have gone to someone whose only goal would be to buy a yacht, fancy cars, or another 18 room mansion in Palm Springs.
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KUSTEVE said:
The real sacrifice are the thousands of Chinese women making .20 an hour, working 80 hours a week in horrible conditions so Nike can pay Kap millions of dollars. The hypocrisy is profound. Just my opinion- you won’t change my opinion, and I know I won’t change yours.
Yes, I am waiting for Kap to come out and make a statement about that.
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Also let’s be clear. Kap doesn’t know what sacrifice is. He has made over 35M dollars playing a game, and is now going to be paid millions dollars a year by Nike.
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@Woodrow Risking your career and subjecting yourself to death threats–those are sacrifices regardless of how much money you previously made.
It does not say deprivation.
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https://twitter.com/glfop/status/1037146311701790720?s=21
REAL sacrifice
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@mayjay My comment was about Kapertrick, not you. I confess I haven’t read your post. Nike is a modern day slave trader, and they bought an activist who was up for sale to bring about political change so Nike could avoid paying taxes. If Kapertrick was truly concerned about oppression, brutality, and the worst form of racism, he wouldn’t take a plug nickel from Nike. If Nike was truly concerned about racism and police brutality, they wouldn’t do almost all their business in a country that has one of the most brutal human rights records in the world. Nike perpetuates this human slavery, and props up this repressive regime. Trump was going to hit Nike with import fees, so now Nike cares about human rights. The sanctimony, and the hypocrisy is deafening.
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What real sacrifice did he make? The kneeling did not start until after he was benched. He thought that other teams would be making offers but they did not materialize and it was not due to collusion. After the process was in motion, ESPN interviewed a big name QB (his name escapes me just now) that was doing commentary and he indicated the two primary football reasons why he was not offered a contract, the first is because his skills were no longer those of a starting QB for a top half team and the money he wanted was that of an elite QB. The second and perhaps the more important was that Kaepernick requires a specific type of offense that most teams do not run and teams want a back up QB that can step in with the team’s offense as run by the starting QB and not having to revamp the offense to fit his style of play in the middle of a game or season; in any case, he refused to be a backup which made everything else moot. The third reason is that he was and is still toxic from a business perspective and football teams are for profit businesses and owners do not like to lose fans and by extension revenue.
Keep in mind that even then he had 3 legitimate chances to get a contract and he sabotaged all 3 of them. Baltimore was going to offer him a contract but his girlfriend posted on Twitter something that absolutely killed the deal; he could have distanced himself from it but he chose not to do it. Miami was ready to offer him a contract but he chose to make a statement about how great Castro was knowing that it offended the large Cuban population in South Florida and once again killed the deal. Seattle also talked to him and all they asked was that he keep his political activism off the field like employees everywhere are required to do but he chose not to do it. I cannot imagine an owner in his right business mind hiring him under those conditions.
By the way, he is nothing but a hypocrite. He complains about Police abuse and yet he praises Castro who ran one for the more repressive and totalitarian regimes in history and killed more Cubans, solely because they opposed his regime, than police has killed minorities in this country (which is 30 times larger) while enforcing the law with the great majority (not all) being while following standard protocol. I am not saying that there are not bad police officers, of course there are, but there are also bad engineers and bad lawyers and bad doctors and let’s not forget bad priest too. No profession is perfect and most cops do a good job under very difficult conditions.
If you have a chance, do a “ride along” with a police officer, many Police Departments have programs to do just this. I did one with a friend that was police office in the KCMO area and include some inner city neighborhoods and it was not even a busy weekend night and I acquired a completely different view of what they do, the abuse they take and a new appreciation for their service.
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@JayHawkFanToo Preach my man!
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@JayHawkFanToo Speaking of Cuba…
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@KUSTEVE I just remember their alternate use, when filled with water, as a pendulum set to swing into the face of someone opening their Oliver Hall door…
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@JayHawkFanToo Exactly, not only are people not buying his so called sacrifice but anyone in marketing should’ve known it was a bad move. Kaep has been against police and has been wearing cops as pigs for sock, so you’re gonna lose cops as customers. He has been vocal about supporting Castro, which means people that are against communism and murder may take their business elsewhere as well. Its just not a smart move on many fronts IMO
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The type of offense Kaepernick excels in is the type of offense run by the following teams:
Houston, Dallas, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Carolina, Miami, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Seattle.
Of those teams, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa and Tennessee all have/had openings at QB. The football argument is a tired argument. It was about the protests. Just own that. Same as the Chiefs should own that trading Marcus Peters was not a football decision, now that they will be trotting out a bottom third secondary this season.
As for what Kaepernick sacrificed, he gave up his career, and a lucrative one at that. Perhaps you disagree with the reason why he gave that career up, but its a false narrative to think Kaepernick is not in the NFL now because of his football skills.
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@justanotherfan He is not in the NFL because his talent is not worth the headache that owners and coaches would have to deal with. It is simple. If he was talented enough he would be on a team… You think is Cam Newton was doing this he would be in the same situation as Kap?
He is making more money now off of book deals and Nike then he would have as a backup QB so your he scarficed money argument holds no water.
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Well, considering who the Panthers former owner was, I think the Panthers would have probably cut or traded him. Whether he was blacklisted like Kaep is a harder question.
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@justanotherfan It is actually not that hard of a question. Cam is a talented QB who can help a team win at the highest level. Kap is not. One is worth the headache and one is not.
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@Woodrow Actually, the argument that “Kap is not worth the headache” is logically a concession that his protest, or at least the notoriety with it, is the reason for him not being signed. Call it a tradeoff: where unique talent exceeds backlash expected from notoriety, sign him; where notoriety is higher, don’t sign him. If others at that talent level are all signed, then his protest is the difference.
I don’t think this necessarily supports his collusion (oh, dear: that word again!) claim in arbitration, however. The supply of middle echelon quarterbacks means that is entirely possible to me that NFL teams signing backup QBs this year independently decided to avoid a radioactive Kap after considering the massive amounts of info, press, social media, ratings, and of course ticket sales.
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You need to be more open minded and consider that maybe Kaepernick is no longer starting QB material. Stating as a fact that his protest was the only reason he was not picked up is being very closed minded.
As I wrote above, Kaepernick not playing is because a combination of reasons including but not limited to being past his prime, wanting to get paid elite QB wages when most teams consider him a backup, not wanting to be a backup only a starter and yes…being really bad for business because of his insistence on protesting on company’s time, something no one is entitled to and something that fans do not want to see and thus negatively affecting the bottom line.
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Open minded lol!
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I have never thought Kap was genuine, but that is just how I saw it unfold. It’s hard to believe a guy who just lost his starting job AND is hypocritical for so many reasons. (Of course my favorite new reason is making millions off of a company that is known for running sweatshops, and to this day, won’t allow inspections to see the conditions of their factories. Factories that are of course in countries lead by dictators or known for awful worker’s rights or the oppression of women. Some even hit the trifecta). So I never did understand the support of Kap.
But, he is talented enough to be in the NFL. Just not at $10M a year like he has reportedly wanted. His last season he threw 16 TDs and only 4 picks. A team would be lucky to have him as a backup. However, backup QB is about the last place you want to have a distraction. You don’t even want to know your backup QBs name. So, is he worth having on your team? Absolutely not. But he is 100% talented enough.
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Kap doesn’t really want a job in the NFL. It doesn’t fit with his and his handlers narrative.
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We have gone over this a few times, but I just want to remind everyone of some of the QBs that will be starting for actual NFL teams this weekend, along with their passer rating from last season (Kaepernick had a rating of 90.7 in 2016, and will turn 31 later this year):
Again, this is just football reasons and doesn’t take contracts or anything else into account.
Eli Manning and Joe Flacco (both at 80.4)
Blake Bortles (84.7)
Derek Carr (86.4)
Andy Dalton (86.6)
Cam Newton (80.7)
Marcus Mariota (79.3)
Now, here’s a list of teams that do not have a QB on their 2018 roster with a higher rating than Kaepernick in either 2016 or 2017:
Buffalo, Denver, Kansas City, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Giants, Cleveland, Chicago, Jets, Indianapolis.
If we take out the teams that either have new, young QBs or a guy returning from injury (KC, Chicago, Indy) that still leaves us with 7 teams that don’t have a STARTING QB on their roster better than Colin Kaepernick. Cleveland isn’t starting Mayfield this year. Buffalo isn’t starting Allen. Denver’s QB situation is horrible. Eli Manning was past his best by date two years ago. Jacksonville might have gone to the Super Bowl last year with a QB better than Blake Bortles. The Jets QB situation is a tragic comedy. And Joe Flacco is basically Eli Manning with less famous siblings.
Saying he’s just a backup is flat out false. He’s better than maybe a third of the QBs that will start this weekend. He’s better than basically every backup not named Carson Wentz. Heck, the most damaging thing the NFL has against them regarding the lawsuit is that the Miami Dolphins brought Jay Cutler (yes, that Jay Cutler) out of retirement to start actual live NFL games for them last year.
Like I said, anyone is free to disagree with Kaepernick, his protest, his methods, or anything else you want to. But saying its a football based decision is a false narrative.
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@justanotherfan Saying he is a starter is flat out false.
He is 10- 22 in his last 32 starts (I gave him the benefit of two full season’s of data. He is 4-20 in his last 24 games which is a season and a half of data exactly).
He takes a TON of sacks. He is one of the least accurate passers. He has one of the worst Net Yards Gained per Passing Attempt. He doesn’t throw a lot of TDs, percentage-wise. He doesn’t get a lot of yards just in general.
He is just not a starting QB. No matter how hard you want to spin it that way. It is simply a false narrative. I don’t know another 31 year old QB that could go 4-20 in there last 24 games and someone could claim that player is a starter.
I’m going to give you a list. This is QBs who have won more games in their last 24 starts than Kap, but also aren’t starters on their team currently. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Nick Foles, Chase Daniel, Josh McCown, Brian Hoyer, Chad Henne, Trevor Siemien, Jacoby Brissett, Colt McCoy, Matt Shaub, Brock Osweiller, Blaine Gabbert, Geno Smith, RG3, EJ Manuel, Matt Cassel, Brandon Weeden, Teddy Bridgewater, Drew Stanton, Mike Glennon, and Derek Anderson.
That is 21 guys who are backups who have won more games given the same opportunity. So, what makes Kap any more special than these guys?
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justanotherfan said:
We have gone over this a few times, but I just want to remind everyone of some of the QBs that will be starting for actual NFL teams this weekend, along with their passer rating from last season (Kaepernick had a rating of 90.7 in 2016, and will turn 31 later this year):
Again, this is just football reasons and doesn’t take contracts or anything else into account.
Eli Manning and Joe Flacco (both at 80.4)
Blake Bortles (84.7)
Derek Carr (86.4)
Andy Dalton (86.6)
Cam Newton (80.7)
Marcus Mariota (79.3)
Now, here’s a list of teams that do not have a QB on their 2018 roster with a higher rating than Kaepernick in either 2016 or 2017:
Buffalo, Denver, Kansas City, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Giants, Cleveland, Chicago, Jets, Indianapolis.
If we take out the teams that either have new, young QBs or a guy returning from injury (KC, Chicago, Indy) that still leaves us with 7 teams that don’t have a STARTING QB on their roster better than Colin Kaepernick. Cleveland isn’t starting Mayfield this year. Buffalo isn’t starting Allen. Denver’s QB situation is horrible. Eli Manning was past his best by date two years ago. Jacksonville might have gone to the Super Bowl last year with a QB better than Blake Bortles. The Jets QB situation is a tragic comedy. And Joe Flacco is basically Eli Manning with less famous siblings.
Saying he’s just a backup is flat out false. He’s better than maybe a third of the QBs that will start this weekend. He’s better than basically every backup not named Carson Wentz. Heck, the most damaging thing the NFL has against them regarding the lawsuit is that the Miami Dolphins brought Jay Cutler (yes, that Jay Cutler) out of retirement to start actual live NFL games for them last year.
Like I said, anyone is free to disagree with Kaepernick, his protest, his methods, or anything else you want to. But saying its a football based decision is a false narrative.
I refuse to believe that you believe this. Either you don’t watch football or don’t know anything about it. Thanks for the laughs though.
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KUSTEVE said:
The real sacrifice are the thousands of Chinese women making .20 an hour, working 80 hours a week in horrible conditions so Nike can pay Kap millions of dollars. The hypocrisy is profound. Just my opinion- you won’t change my opinion, and I know I won’t change yours.
Frozen rope out. of the Park!!!
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KUSTEVE said:
@mayjay My comment was about Kapertrick, not you. I confess I haven’t read your post. Nike is a modern day slave trader, and they bought an activist who was up for sale to bring about political change so Nike could avoid paying taxes. If Kapertrick was truly concerned about oppression, brutality, and the worst form of racism, he wouldn’t take a plug nickel from Nike. If Nike was truly concerned about racism and police brutality, they wouldn’t do almost all their business in a country that has one of the most brutal human rights records in the world. Nike perpetuates this human slavery, and props up this repressive regime. Trump was going to hit Nike with import fees, so now Nike cares about human rights. The sanctimony, and the hypocrisy is deafening.
Go Steve!
Nike might sign you to a million dollar contract too.
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“Xiāngxìn yīxiē shìqíng”
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Are you citing QB wins? Does that make Blake Bortles a top ten QB? Asking for a friend.
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Too funny not to share
