Phil Knight In 1993, the most powerful man in sports wasn’t an athlete, manager or team owner. It was Philip Knight who had been marketing athletic shoes to sports legends and weekend warriors. Through all of the tough uprising competiveness Nike had one of the most successful and recognized names in the sports world.
It all started at Stanford University when he came up with a design that would become the world’s best athletic shoe. He made up a plan to get into the market by using cheap Japanese labor to make a cheaper better quality running shoe. He flew to japan with a fake business plan called Blue Ribbon Sports, he convinced the Onitsuka Tiger Company to send him samples if he later placed an order. Knight borrowed money from his father to pay for the samples, and he later sent some pairs to his former Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman. They later became partners and created Blue Ribbon Sports and bought two hundred pairs of tigers, Knight would sell them from his car at track meets in the northwest. In the early 70’s sales reached three million dollars and Knight decided it was time to design his own shoes, in 1972 the Nike line was launched. With a big white swoosh on the side and waffle sole Nike offered a better shoe with less weight. For marketing Knights idea was simple, he would get top athletes around the world to wear his sneaker. When the athletes started making national television so did his shoes. During the 1980’s Nikes Air Jordan line was one of the most popular shoes to have and by 1986 over one billion dollars in sales were made. There was a quick drop in sales a year later when a new company Reebok came into the market; Knight realized that the consumer wanted a better appearance over the function of the shoe. (Van Dyke) Nike did have some rough patches in the 90’s when Jessie Jackson
