Organizing: Just Do It

David Loughnot
Sep 4, 2018 · 3 min read

In case you haven’t seen it, Nike just announced that Colin Kaepernick is going to be one of the faces of the campaign for the 30th anniversary of the “Just Do It” motto.

Kudos to everyone who helped make this happen.

Nike hadn’t featured Kaepernick in an ad in years and now reports are that they’ve signed a deal with Kaepernick that not only makes him a face on this new campaign, but will pay him and also send some merchandise money to his Know Your Rights campaign.

This is a huge moment in sports and culture for one very big reason: Nike almost certainly had to be coerced— or at least strongly encouraged — to do this. And that is monumental. A company that has made hundreds of billions in revenue and built one of the most powerful brands in the world on the exploitation of cheap labor and use of highly strategic and manipulative marketing to sell you anything it can at a high markup does not suddenly decide to wade into the most incendiary debate in sports when it’s not necessary. And this was not necessary. Nobody would have noticed if Nike’s new campaign didn’t feature Kaepernick. But taking any position at all will absolutely cost Nike some customers, as is already happening. Somebody had to push Nike into this.

To put this into more perspective, Nike’s annual revenue is approaching 40 billion dollars. That comes from from people across the political spectrum and it comes mostly from sports that aren’t football. Even in football, Nike just signed a deal to make all NFL jerseys for another decade. And Nike didn’t pass on the issue or even weigh in with a milquetoast position, but fully endorsed one side of this debate, clearly implying that Kaepernick’s stand is what cost him his NFL career.

There is no way Nike does this deal without thinking that it is the financially smart play. That most likely means some combination of the following two factors:

  1. Nike’s thinks that taking this stand will generate more revenue; and/or
  2. Nike thought that it’s brand would suffer if it did not take a stand.

The first seems incredibly unlikely. The second is much more likely since Nike’s entire brand is premised on having the best athletes on the planet and several of those athletes have expressed support for Mr. Kaepernick.

So let me send my congratulations and gratitude to the Nike employees who organized to make this happen. I’m guessing that Lebron James, Serena Williams, and Kevin Durant are on the short list, but with many many others helping out. And, of course, Mr. Kaepernick is the organizer-in-chief. Thank you all and congratulations!

Hopefully one day this story gets told publicly so we can understand the details of what happened, but it’s not hard to see this as part of the larger movement playing out where athletes — especially black athletes — are starting to exercise their soft power more. They know that Nike’s empire does not exist without their unique talents and public good will. That’s power. And using their power to organize with others and lift up voices speaking out for vulnerable communities and causes they support? That’s impressive.

Just do it.

EDIT: Some of the feedback I’ve received in the first 15 hours this has been up has suggested that I underestimated the first theory for Nike’s motivation: that taking this stand will generate more revenue. I think that’s a fair assessment. It’s possible that Nike executives believe that Trump and his supporters and the attitudes of the NFL owners are of declining commercial importance. It’s entirely possible that this is part of Nike placing a strategic wager that the NFL will be on the decline for the foreseeable future, so it’s less risky to potentially annoy the owners. All of that is valid and I do think that I underestimated the potential of that. However, if those are the same thoughts motivating this decision, that is still rather monumental and the actions of the same stars I named above have undoubtedly played a large role in helping shape this new reality, so I would still give them a lot of credit, even if they’re not twisting arms behind the scenes.

Also, let me be clear that in no way do I think that Nike is doing this for any reasons other than financial and they don’t deserve any special credit for this.

David Loughnot

Written by

Attorney. Activist. Trying to use my privilege for allyship. Curious about how things work and how they could work better.

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