For the past two years, Colin Kaepernick has been an avatar in the fight for social justice in America. He’s also been a lightning rod for all the backlash. Since his controversial decision to kneel during the national anthem at football games, he’s been simultaneously praised and derided. Now, the former NFL quarterback is out of a job, blackballed by a league that refused to stand behind him as he exercised that most cherished of American rights: freedom of speech.
A certain sector of fans – along with right-wing media, several team owners, and even the president – have criticized him as un-American. They’ve erected a straw-man argument that falsely equates Kaepernick’s protest to disrespect for our military and/or hatred of America itself.
They ignore the underlying message: that Kaepernick is using his platform to fight for equality, for equal protection under the law for people of color who have been routinely murdered by police without consequence. And because the NFL is more concerned about its brand image and its bottom line, they’ve collectively distanced themselves from him, as have many sponsors.
That’s why it was so shocking when Nike, who makes the NFL’s uniforms, unveiled their new ad campaign last month featuring Kaepernick as the company’s new celebrity endorser. But it wasn’t an easy decision for the world’s leading shoe and apparel giant. According to a new report, Nike seriously considered parting ways with Kaepernick entirely before deciding to make him the face of the brand, via Julie Creswell, Kevin Draper, and Sapna Maheshwari of The New York Times:
In the summer of 2017, a debate raged in Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., over whether to cut loose the controversial, unemployed quarterback — and the company very nearly did, according to two individuals with knowledge of the discussions who requested anonymity because of nondisclosure agreements each has with Nike.
When the company did decide to embrace the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, it risked angering the National Football League, a Nike partner since 2012, but the company ultimately decided it was a risk worth taking, given the credibility the company would gain with the young, urban market it has long targeted.
Nike certainly deserves credit for their decision. They risked alienating a potentially large portion of their customer base for the sake of a highly-divisive subject. But now that risk is paying major dividends, as online sales surged in the weeks immediately after their unveiling, while stocks reached record highs.
And this latest revelation makes it even more difficult to ignore the glaring cynicism. Nike is a business, one that had been struggling in recent years as they loosened their grip on the shoe and apparel industry amid the emergence of brands like UnderArmor and the rise of adidas and were projecting even more slippage in the next fiscal year. The Oregon-based company has also undergone three rounds of massive layoffs in the last two years alone.
Seen through that lens, the new campaign was something of Hail Mary, one that reportedly almost got scrapped before it ever saw the light of day. But if there’s one major takeaway from this experience, it’s that doing the right thing and doing what’s good for business aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
