"Nike Will Pay The Fines"💰

Let’s me break one of the biggest myths in sports for you…
There is an incredible story about Nike paying the fine for the Air Jordan 1 (which actually wasn't the Jordan 1 - it was the Air Ship). The story goes that Nike saw the easy math of paying $1,000 per game when they could make millions on the other end.
That would be such an amazing strategy if it were true, but it's not.
In hindsight, this makes sense. In reality, Nike was struggling mightily and the NBA quickly amended their rules to increase the fine each time the rule was broken eventually leading to suspension.
The Air Jordan went on to make $160 million in year one.

With all the Nike and Adidas chatter last week, I had so many people in my comments saying, “Well, Rutgers is paying the fine for Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey.” That is just not a thing.

I worked at Nike for a decade. I worked in football deeply with the NFL. I've worked in basketball with the NBA. I've worked with colleges everywhere. I worked for some very big players and we wanted to do really cool cleats, but below is what the NFL does.

They will fine you a couple of times for thousands of dollars, but in the game, they are checking you out and you can't go back onto the field if you don't have the right uniform. They'll penalize your team or they just won't let you play.

So at Nike, yeah, we totally would have paid the fine, but that's just not a thing. Last year after the movie Air, I interviewed Nike's official historian, Scott Reames. Yes, that's a job title.

He was there almost 30 years, is retired now and is one of the best LinkedIn follows ever. Below is the full convo and his direct quote…

“It is true that Rob Strasser said, “$1000…I'll write a check to the NBA right now for $80,000.” But the NBA, realizing that Nike would potentially do that, raised the fine to $5,000 on the second infraction. And there's either $10,000 on the third or there's a suspension of Jordan on the third. So basically they said, “uh-uh.” So that's what actually happened.”

Again, in college if you just cover the logo, you get 5% of the total deal. That's $200,000 on the first one. Then it goes up to 10%. We are talking about millions of dollars in fines.
Schools are not ponying up the fine for one kid to wear an opposing brand!

I wish this was a real thing that they just pay the fines. But, it's not.

Education & Resources:
Remember when Lucky F Energy sponsored Tennis Coaches at the US Open?
We talked with their CMO (former Liquid Death SVP) who gave us the inside scoop.
Worth a watch!

If you missed the US Open Guerrilla Strategy, here’s more…

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Blessings:
It’s election season & spooky season.
As I approached different neighbors houses last night, all had different political signs in their yard. As far as I could tell, that didn’t stop anyone from being kind and sharing candy with people on both sides of the aisle.
We should practice this in the digital world and the real world.
God Bless You all, regardless of which party you vote for this week.