The world’s largest sportswear company was wobbling amid complaints that it had become too safe. Armed with a provocative new slogan, the company reveals the innovations and strategy it hopes will turn its reputation around
The entrance to Nike’s swish global headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon is paved with rough cobbles, designed to remind employees to watch their step when they go forward.
Last summer, though, not even the world’s biggest sports brand could stop itself from taking an almighty tumble.
Over the course of one July day in 2024, Nike’s share price plummeted by $28bn – the worst single-day performance in the company’s history – after it revealed that second-quarter sales were down 10%.
There were headlines proclaiming that Nike was in crisis. That it had lost its cool, become either too woke, too safe, too conservative or too cumbersome, depending on their political stripe and reading of the situation. To no one’s surprise, its chief executive, John Donahoe, stepped down.
