terrylee

Since its establishment, Nike has developed its brand and its trademark swoosh as a de facto standard in the sporting equipment industry.  A part of its success can be attributed to its continual endorsements and sponsorships of influential athletes, who showcase the Nike brand proudly, and show the general audience that Nike equipments can perform on a professional level.  Nike is quick to endorse these superstars, but it’s also been shown that they’re just as quick to drop these endorsements when the going gets rough.  Lance Armstrong, and most recently, Oscar Pistorius, serve as famous examples of these dropped endorsements, and from a pure business perspective, it makes sense.  The costs simply outweigh the benefits.  Why would Nike continue to pay tens of millions of dollars to continue these endorsements when at the end of the day, continuing to do so does not attract any new customers, or even make current customers feel good about the product.  These callous, yet rational, decisions to drop their endorsements remind us that Nike is ultimately a profit seeking business, and it is not the past relationships, but the future potential that the endorsees hold that Nike ultimately bases its decisions on.