The Athlete’s Voice

In a rare interview, given to the Harvard Business Review back in 1992, Nike’s founder, Phil Knight, now 86, explained what the company looks for in its partners. “The trick is to get athletes who not only can win but can stir up emotion,” he said. Look across the decades, and you’ll see that Nike has consistently achieved just that. From Andre Agassi to Charles Barkley, Emma Raducanu to Ja Morant. Once they’ve found those athletes, Nike looks to grow with them. “We take the time to understand our athletes, and we have to build long-term relationships with them,” explained Knight. “Those relationships go beyond any financial transactions. John McEnroe and Joan Benoit wear our shoes every day, but it’s not the contract. We like them, and they like us. We win their hearts as well as their feet.”

Winning hearts and feet is a good summation of the Nike ethos. It’s been true from the beginning, when the spirit of Nike was no more than a coach and an athlete: Knight and his University of Oregon coach Bill Bowerman. Though much has evolved about the company — and the landscape of sports — over half a century, that much has stayed the same. “For all the changes,” says Slusher, “we also started with the best athletes with the best stories wearing the best product and winning. It was in the trunk of Phil’s car: Get the guy who’s gonna win the marathon to wear your shoes. And in some ways, it’s the same thing today. Of course, it’s a lot broader and more complex, but we’re still partnering with those great athletes and helping them to achieve their best.”

And the company memorializes those close relationships to athletes on its sprawling Beaverton, Oregon, campus by naming its buildings after its greatest stars. “The buildings are named after the men and women who have given us more than their names and endorsements,” explained Knight in his 2016 memoir, Shoe Dog. “Joan Benoit Samuelson, Ken Griffey Jr., Mia Hamm, Tiger Woods, Dan Fouts, Jerry Rice, Steve Prefontaine — they’ve given us our identity.”

“Naming buildings after athletes — that’s an incredible thing,” says John McEnroe, who has his own building on campus and is Nike’s longest-tenured athlete partner at 44 years and counting, having won seven grand slam titles over the course of his career. The tennis champ’s longstanding relationship with Nike is a testament to a defining difference in how the company thinks about its endorsers. Perhaps not even Knight knows the exact number of athletes that have been part of Nike’s journey over these 50 years. At any given time, the company maintains close to 16,000 relationships with athletes and organizations across the globe. Forbes recently reported that of the top 100 highest earning athletes, more than half were part of the Nike family. Nike is a brand of champions.

You could write the history of Nike’s first 50 years through its heritage of champions, individuals whose commitment to excellence has helped them achieve the highest recognition in their sport. LeBron James and Serena Williams, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Naomi Osaka, Rafa Nadal and Sam Kerr, and so many more. Here, “champion” is a noun, a word that memorializes past performance. As a company, Nike embraces the verb, dedicating itself to actively supporting the cause of its athletes. In his letter commemorating Nike’s golden anniversary, Knight put words to this belief: “From Day One,” he wrote, “everything we did — and still do — is to unleash the potential of every athlete around the world.”

How do you champion a champion? Ask three-time Super Bowl champ Jerry Rice and he’ll tell you. It starts, he says, with the best — and the best-looking — equipment. “It’s all the swag! Having that Nike Swoosh on there,” he says, while wearing a Nike T-shirt, Swoosh across the chest. “I remember having to tape my shoes a certain way to make sure that logo stood out. Just to have that logo on there, I knew I was gonna do something special on that day.”

When asked what they’d preserve for a time capsule commemorating Nike’s 50th, several athletes mention the iconic late ’80s, early ’90s advertising campaigns starring Michael Jordan, and more specifically, the 1989 Spike Lee-directed ad starring Lee as Mars Blackmon, with its indelible refrain, “It’s gotta be the shoes!”

The phrase still resonates. On a recent visit to the Nike campus, the reigning NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo was asked what he thinks about when he thinks about Nike. His response was immediate. “Shoes. And, specifically, free shoes! The ones I get at my house,” he said, flashing a mischievous grin familiar to those who know the playful personality of one of the most competitive athletes on the face of the earth. Just as quick, he shifts to a tone of sincerity and thoughtfulness. What does Nike bring to mind? “The culture they’ve built over the years,” he says. “When I think about Nike, I think about the athletes that have been a part of Nike’s journey.”

Barry Sanders played a big part in Nike’s journey, and Nike played a big part in his. Throughout his career, Sanders was generous with his teammates, gifting his linemen Rolex watches and big-screen TVs, but frugal when it came to himself. Off the field, you’d likely find him head to toe in Nike-issued gear. Why pay for clothes when Nike gave them to you for free? And besides, wearing the Swoosh was a source of pride. “It was a seal of approval,” says Sanders today, thinking back on his decision to sign with Nike. “I’m one of those guys.”

Historically, a lot of those “guys” have been women, and Nike continues to build on its commitment to women’s sports and to enhance its focus on women consumers. “With Nike, it’s been great to be able to brainstorm together and be in meeting rooms with people who actually do have a future plan,” says Alex Morgan. “It’s great to hear the athlete’s perspective and where the athlete feels their contributions can be the most authentic.” Earlier this year, Nike formalized that informal practice of consulting athletes when it inaugurated its Athlete Think Tank, aimed at investing in the future of women’s sport. Among its 13 founding members is Serena Williams, who brings her vision and advocacy to this vital work. “I think Nike has probably learned a lot from working with me and my team,” says Williams. “I think I have helped teach them how to be nimbler and more spontaneous.” Of course, she’s learned from Nike too: how to chart long-term goals, how to plan for success. Paula Badosa, the 26-year-old Spanish tennis star, is half as old as Nike, but she understands this ethos. “Our dreams as athletes become their dreams,” she says. The athlete’s voice resounds.

The voice itself is an athlete. We hear its sound because of the conscious and unconscious coordination of lungs and abdominal muscles, vocal folds and larynx, tongue and teeth. It should come as no surprise, then, that people who have dedicated their lives to training their bodies to achieve peak performance would have strong voices too. A’ja Wilson, a collegiate champion, WNBA MVP and three-time All Star, all before the age of 26, understands her greatest role as being “a voice for the voiceless,” she says. In the months after the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman from Louisville, Kentucky, who was killed during a no-knock raid on her apartment, Wilson used the platform she earned through her athletic achievement to speak out. Addressing the media on September 24, 2020, before her Las Vegas Aces faced off in game three of their semifinal series against the Connecticut Sun, a day after learning that none of the officers involved in Taylor’s death would face charges, Wilson raised her voice in the spirit of her convictions. “Black Lives Matter isn’t this big thing that’s taking money,” she said. “It is a statement. It is a life that I live. I am a Black woman. You take everything that I have earned away from me, and I am a Black woman.”

Wilson knows that Nike supports her and her freedom of self-expression. More than that, she understands that Nike gives her a means of amplifying her voice so that it reaches farther, resonates deeper. “Nike does an amazing job of helping us tell our stories the way that we want them to be told,” she says. “Just be you and they will make it work. I appreciate that, and I’m sure other athletes do as well.”