As Nike’s market share has continued to grow since the 1980s, so too has the amount of public criticism levied against the company’s business practices. Whether it is focused directly on Knight, who has become the public face and the lightening rod of the company in the media, or against the company in general, the criticism is more often than not harsh and unforgiving.
In Michael Moore’s 1997 book “Downsize This,” he calls Knight a “Corporate Crook.” The criticism came after revelations that many of Nike’s products were being produced under harsh conditions in sweatshops throughout Indonesia, where pregnant women and even some girls as young as fourteen years old were sewing shoes for the companies that Nike had contracted to make its products. Moore even went to Knight to film an interview with the Nike CEO. Not one to back down in the face of a challenge, Knight agreed to talk to Moore – the only CEO of roughly twenty Moore had approached to talk to him about their business practices. In the interview, Knight boldly told Moore that if he was willing to invest in and build a factory in the U.S. that could match the quality and price of shoes made overseas, Nike would buy shoes from him.
Where Nike was getting its shoes was not the only thing creating a stir for the company. When a barrage of shootings and knifings began to occur in the early 1990s, it was the company’s advertising slogans that came under fire. The teenagers in the American inner cities who had committed these crimes had done so in an attempt to get their hands on a pair of Nikes, which cost almost $100 at the time. Newspaper headlines claimed that the Nike slogan “Just Do It” served as a justification for the crimes, especially since most of the company’s ad campaigns were focused on children living in American ghettos.
However, Knight never lost a step. He continued to pursue the same brand of advertising that was coming under fire and responded only by saying, “Our business practices are no different than those of our competitors. But we are bigger, and thus more visible, so we get more flack.”
Knight doesn’t just weather the storm; at times, he often seems to court the controversy, seeking it out in order to make attention-grabbing headlines. After all, any PR is good PR, according to Knight. It was to this end that in 1994, Nike donated $25,000 to Tonya Harding’s defense fund; Reebok, one of its main competitors, was the official sponsor of Harding’s arch-nemesis Nancy Kerrigan. Nike also signed such rebellious athletes as Dennis Rodman and Charles Barkley, projecting attitude as well as excellence.
Throughout his reign at the top of the athletic shoe industry, Knight has stood his ground in the face of constant attack. Often provoking the controversy by his own doing, Knight has proven to be feisty and counter-establishment, which has come to represent the athletic culture that Nike is modeled after.
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