Nike, Inc.
Nike Inc. ( engl. [ naɪki or naɪk ], similar to gr νίκη [ ní ː kɛ ː ] "victory", or " Nike, the goddess of victory ") is an established in 1972, international, American sporting goods supplier. Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon. Nike is the world's leading sporting goods supplier since 1989.
- 2.1 Shoes
- 2.2 Sportswear
- 2.3 sport accessories
History
Bill Bowerman, a former sports coach at the University of Oregon in Eugene, founded in June 1964, the company Blue Ribbon Sports, together with Phil Knight. The company initially distributed sports Onitsuka Tiger (now Asics ) before they themselves in 1971 under the name Nike ( name of the Greek goddess of victory ) produced shoes that were lighter and had profiliertere soles than the usual American. In 1972, the first self-produced collection.
The commercial success of Nike was associated with binding to successful athletes. The company upgraded from Steve Prefontaine, who reached at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, on 5000 meters in fourth place. He made Nike shoes also known for other runners. 1978 Nike began selling shoes in Europe.
In 1984, Nike took the (then ) basketball rookie Michael Jordan under contract. Together, they designed their own collections. In the first year of cooperation Nike generated 130 million U.S. dollars with the Air Jordan brand. Overall, Jordan is said to have the company placed about 2.6 billion U.S. dollars in sales.
Nike acquired in 1989, the world's leading position as a sporting goods supplier that keeps it held until today.
In 1994, the football world champion from Brazil were committed. In 1995, Nike Canadian Hockey equipment Canstar for 395 million U.S. dollars, including the Bauer brand. Followed in 1996 with the then little- known golfer Tiger Woods the next coup after Michael Jordan. For five million U.S. dollars per year Nike has been the supplier of the future golf stars. Later, the professional cyclist and triathlete Lance Armstrong won for the company.
In September 2003, Nike took over Converse brand for 305 million U.S. dollars.
Knight came in 2004 from the Board, and was succeeded by William D. Perez. In January 2006, Perez was replaced by Mark Parker.
With the campaign " Stand up, speak up! " ( " Arise, lift up your voice !") Advertises Nike since February 2005 against racism and advocates for tolerance and acceptance in European football stadiums one.
In April 2008, the Nike Bauer Hockey division to an investor group from Kohlberg & Company and Canadian businessman W. Graeme Roustan has been sold. The sale price was reported to be 200 million U.S. dollars.
In addition, Nike is the main sponsor of the NFL since 2012 ( the American professional league in American football).
Logo
The graphic design student Carolyn Davidson designed for around 35 U.S. dollars, the logo, the so called Swoosh; Today, this " Nike hook " one of the most famous trademarks in the world, as well as the prompt " Just do it ". The two components of the mark are used either alone by themselves and in combination for brand identification.
Products
Shoes
At the foundation of the company Nike in 1972, it was initially only to the manufacture and sale of sports shoes. The brand is still most known by their different and usually also eye-catching shoe models today; this shoe range includes today among other sneakers and running shoes in many different colors and variations.
Sportswear
Over the years, many other sports were added to the Nike range. These items include: shorts, forehead and bracelets, hoodies, and sweatshirts, jackets and vests, jerseys, running shorts or gymnastic and training pants, T -shirts and polo shirts.
Sport accessories
Furthermore, there are numerous sports accessories, sports equipment and accessories products from Nike. These include backpacks, hats and caps, tennis, basketball and soccer balls, shin guards, socks, gloves, towels, watches.
Sponsorship of athletes
Nike equips many athletes in various sports from:
- Basketball players, for example: LeBron James
- Fighter of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, for example: Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Junior dos Santos
- Football players, such as: Mario Götze, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Franck Ribery, Wesley Sneijder, Kevin Strootman, Javier Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Gerard Piqué, Alexandre Pato, Zlatan Ibrahimović
- Golfers, for example, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy
- Tennis players, for example, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Azarenka Wiktoryja
Department store
Under the name of Nike Town Nike opened 14 stores in the U.S., UK, France and Germany. The first Niketown opened in Portland in 1990. Opened in 1996 in Manhattan Nike Town is the flagship of Nike. From 1999 to 2013 there was the first German Niketown store on Tauentzienstraße Berlin -Charlottenburg. In the spring of 2014 this is a few meters from the old location reopened.
Nike Barbershop
In June 2012, Nike began a new advertising concept with the Nike Barbershop, a hair salon in the style of the 1920s. The salon opened in Buenos Aires, Milan, Madrid, Mexico City, Moscow and Paris simultaneously. The Paris Barbershop is limited in cremerie de Paris and at one month, - for this " pop-up store " a promotional video with the footballer Mario Balotelli was filmed.
Criticism
The company is accused of, inter alia, in the Black Markenfirmen of exploitation, child labor and other abuses in supplier factories. Also, the U.S. filmmaker Michael Moore criticized the company in the documentary The big makers. The highlight is the very reminiscent of Moore's previous film Roger & Me conversation between Michael Moore and Nike CEO Phil Knight about the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries. Phil Knight claimed that the U.S. wanted to sew any more shoes for Nike, but he nachdächte on the establishment of new plants in America, enough is willing to work could find. Then Moore presented him with hundreds of people who would take over immediately exactly this job at Nike. Nevertheless Knight not relented and in the end, Moore and Knight agreed to a donation for a good cause. Nike had previously outsourced much of its shoe production to Indonesia, where they are partly made by children for 19 cents per hour wages.