The Nike CEO’s memo to his employees was 860 words long.
But here are the 33 that caught the eye: “Over the past year, we’ve put sports at the center of everything we do. We’re seeing encouraging signs of progress, but we still have work to do to win in the long term.”
This was sent on October 1, a day before Nike’s stock price closed at $33.87 per share, its lowest level in more than 12 years. The once unstoppable sporting titan expects more layoffs in 2027 after already cutting its workforce twice this year.
A Nike ad featuring quarterback Colin Kaepernick is on display September 8, 2018 in New York. Nike’s campaign featuring Kaepernick, the former NFL player turned activist against police brutality, takes a strong stance on a controversial issue. (AFP via Getty Images)
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And one has to wonder if those words above — “over the past year, we have put sports at the center of everything we do” — was as much a confession as a mission statement. Nike has chosen politics over its core identity, and is desperately trying to put things right.
Last month, Outkick’s Dan Zaksheske listed a series of decisions the company has made in recent years aimed at courting a left-leaning audience. In 2019, she chose Colin Kaepernick as the face of her 30th anniversary “Just Do It” campaign. Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, the company aired its “For Once, Don’t Do It” ad, which included phrases such as “don’t pretend there’s no problem in America” and “Don’t turn your back on racism.” In 2023, he teamed up with Dylan Mulvaney, a woman-identifying man, to promote leggings and sports bras for women – seemingly unfazed by the backlash over Mulvaney’s partnership with Bud Light. There was also the “Equality” advert in 2017 which featured phrases such as “the ball should bounce the same for everyone”.
Nike has highlighted Pride and LGBTQ messaging in its branding and corporate initiatives. (SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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It wouldn’t be fair to say that any one of these campaigns single-handedly caused the Swoosh’s stock to sink. Nike stock reached an all-time high of $177.51 per share in November 2021.
But the fact that it has fallen 81% since then? It’s hard not to relate much of it to the brand’s regular offerings on the altar of enlightenment.
One of the most egregious gaffes in recent years is the delay of Caitlin Clark’s iconic sneaker. As sports writers such as Ethan Strauss and Dan Wetzel have pointed out, Nike didn’t drop Clark’s shoe until June of this year. Strauss wrote earlier that the company felt it had to release A’ja Wilson’s sneaker before Clark’s, even though Wilson ranks fifth in WNBA jersey sales and Clark first. Although A’ja is almost certainly the best WNBA player, nothing moves women’s basketball fans (or hoops fans in general?) like anything associated with Caitlin.
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Caitlin Clark’s sneakers are shown before the Indiana Fever’s game against the Atlanta Dream at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 18, 2026. (AJ Mast/NBAE via Getty Images)
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This wasn’t necessarily a case of Nike putting sports on the back burner. But it smacked of identity politics, which tends to get costly when a company loses sight of what its customers actually want. Nike seems to have realized this, but it took being kicked out of the S&P 100 for executives to actually do something.
Which brings us back to the aforementioned memo. Nike CEO Elliott Hill did not use the note to dwell on the company’s past campaigns and advertisements. He mentioned that Nike had established a new campus in India. He highlighted the acceleration of supply chain modernization efforts. He discussed Nike’s plan to organize itself into three geographic regions: Americas (North America and Latin America), APGC (Asia Pacific and Greater China) and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
But it’s hard to ignore this simple phrase recognizing the priority given to sport.
Injecting politics into athletics is almost always a guarantee of diverting attention elsewhere. The NBA’s post-2020 ratings collapse certainly reinforced this notion.
Nike shares have slumped in recent weeks.
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It seems that injecting politics into sports brands can be just as corrosive. Nike woke up a while ago, and it might finally be waking up to the damage it’s done.
OutKick reached out to Nike for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Gn bussni
