Nike’s Walk on the Woke Side Just Cost the Company Its Place in the S&P 100
The reasons for the company’s precipitous decline are hardly a mystery. In 2018, Nike went all in on woke marketing.
Last month, I reported that Nike shares had closed at $40.18 — a 12-year low — on the New York Stock Exchange. A JP Morgan analyst had just downgraded the company from “neutral” to “underweight,” warning that Nike’s “Win Now” turnaround strategy “will likely drag on earnings through at least fiscal 2028.”
In the three weeks since that bearish revision, Nike shares have languished near that level, hitting a new closing low of $38.40 on Friday. Since reaching an all-time closing high of $177.51 five years ago, the stock has shed nearly 80% of its value.
Companies eventually pay a price for that kind of performance. So, few were surprised when index provider S&P Global announced that Nike would be removed from the S&P 100 as part of its quarterly rebalancing. The change will take effect before the opening bell on Sept. 21.
The S&P 100 is a stock market index composed of 100 of the largest and most established publicly traded U.S. companies. It is a subset of the S&P 500.
The index is weighted by market capitalization, meaning its largest companies exert the greatest influence on its performance. Removal from the S&P 100 does not mean Nike is being delisted from the stock exchange — or removed from the broader S&P 500. It means Nike no longer meets the criteria for inclusion among this narrower group of blue-chip giants.
At any rate, the reasons for the company’s precipitous decline are hardly a mystery. In 2018, Nike went all in on woke marketing.
Nike paid millions to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was more famous for kneeling during the national anthem to protest systemic racism and police brutality than for his football prowess. Although Nike never disclosed the precise terms of the contract, Kaepernick’s multiyear endorsement deal was reportedly worth millions of dollars annually and included royalties from branded merchandise.
At the same time, Nike made diversity, equity, and inclusion a central pillar of its hiring strategy, dramatically expanding its ranks of DEI-focused personnel. The new DEI hires abandoned — or perhaps were not even aware of — the formula that had propelled Nike to the top of the sportswear industry.
Sportswriter Ethan Strauss documented this transformation particularly well in a 2021 analysis of Nike’s once-iconic advertising. In the piece, titled “Nike’s End of Men: Why Nike no longer wants us to Be Like Mike,” he predicted the company’s eventual fall from grace.
Instead of preserving the brand’s traditional emphasis on male athletes, excellence, and competition, Strauss noted, Nike was increasingly infusing its advertising with social activism, identity politics, and progressive cultural messaging.
He contrasted the company’s celebrated campaigns of the 1990s and 2000s — which glorified athletic greatness, fierce competition, irreverence, and the relentless pursuit of victory — with its more recent output. In the old Nike universe, Strauss observed, winning was glorious, and losing was painful.
The newer campaigns, he wrote, struck a markedly different tone, subordinating athletic achievement to political and social messaging. Strauss cited soccer advertisements repudiating “toxic masculinity,” a European Championship campaign centered on inclusion and social causes, and basketball ads that purported to celebrate women partly by denigrating men. His conclusion was devastating: Nike had stopped “marketing greatness” and begun “marketing resentful insecurity.”
As the X user reminds us in the post below, “Tragically, they forgot Michael Jordan’s sage advice: Republicans buy sneakers, too.”
In 2018, NIKE made an abrupt pivot into woke marketing.
They tried to make a hero out of Colin Kaepernick for disrespecting the American flag.
They paid Kaepernick a staggering $25M and dished out a fully guaranteed multi-year contract.
The message was loud and clear: if you… pic.twitter.com/9YF8iXZXOE
— Pro America Politics (@proamericapol) August 17, 2026
Nike’s embrace of woke politics was a major strategic blunder. The company lost sight of both its identity and its customers. The brand that once inspired generations to “Just Do It” stopped celebrating greatness and began lecturing the very people who had made it great.
Nike’s removal from the S&P 100 does not mean the company is finished. But it is a powerful symbol of how far this once-dominant American brand has fallen. Nike traded aspiration for activism, alienated a significant portion of its customer base, and squandered much of the iconic status it had spent decades building. Now, after years of telling Americans what to think, Nike is getting the boot.
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Comments
Kaepernick disrespected the American flag.
Seeing that, Nike executives jumped for joy. “That’s our man. We want him to be our spokesman.” They immediately dished out $25M and a fully guaranteed multi-year contract.
The rest is history (or water under the bridge)
Get woke go broke is their way.
All depart, Next stop leaving the S&P 500
Nike? I dont recall that brand anymore. Even when they were the rage in HS in the late 70’s & early ’80’s, I never bought into their hype.
Good point.
After the drop in stock, Nike executives are looking for a new spokesperson. Rumor has it they are considering Hassan Piker.
They need a new spokesperson
AND a new CEO
Nah. They want a trans person. Muslims are so last year,
Probably a man who credit’s his nike shoes for enabling him to run faster than women.
This really is satisfying. I’m an old dude and no athlete any more, and although I do still exercise I only buy one pair of athletic shoes a years these days. My buying decisions exert absolutely zero influence on sales statistics. Still every now and then life demands a truly pointless and futile gesture. After Nike signed up Kaepernick I went through the closet and gave everything with a Nike logo to charity, and quit buying their shoes or anything with their logo. Pointless: “Old man shouts at clouds.” Futile: Nike sells millions of pairs of shoes every year. Still, one does what one can.
So, this gives me great pleasure. In the greater financial picture of Nike, I am just an ant. However apparently I am one of millions of ants.
“Pointless: “Old man shouts at clouds.”
You should do what middle aged liberal women’s groups do to firearms — pile them up so that a man can feed them to a chopsaw as they cheer.
Firearms may not sell quite in the same number as sneakers, but they last orders of magnitude longer.
I know of a bunch of type 07 who’d make zip guns for $25 and then get $200 coupons when they turned them in, as well as others who’d shop the lines of gun buy-backs or park along the way with “we buy guns” signs. That is primarily why one doesn’t see them anymore.
I stopped buying Nike when the picture came out with a 4 year old sewing a soccer ball
What was that , 25 years ago?
Would like to see more than a headline. Yes a lot of stupid marketing. But what was the cause for declining profits?
I’ve seen and lived woke on the inside. Is this Bad Marketing (Bud Light) or Entrenched DEI Bad Operations?
Bad marketing (Bud Light) is different than Bad operational execution because of DEI hires.
Bad Marketing is a speedboat you can turn around as easily as you flipped on. Any company is 2 commercials away from that oopsie daisy, though most refuse over misplaced pride and lack of grace.
DEI hiring on the other hand- if it went on for long enough is very hard to turn around. Those DEI hires went and hired a whole lot of other DEI and that DEI will only hire and promote other DEI. I’ve lived this. DEI won’t just fire DEI and even if a company decides to change it’s direction, there are laws protecting bad (DEI) hires. In most cases you can’t just “fire them” Even if let go, their DEI buddies find a way to sneak them back in. I’ve seen this.
The bad DEI hiring at the exec level is still going on and some companies are just recycling other companies dumber than a box of rocks DEI mistakes .. case in point Toyota: https://www.cbtnews.com/toyota-motor-north-america-executive-change/
I’d advise strongly against buying a Toyota in case their engines blowing up weren’t enough to dissuade you. It’s entrenched there and it’s pretty obvious they are committed to woke.
Andy – I was going to let this slide but I think I have to comment. Do you have some specific information that Niki Allen [joining] TMNA as chief information officer is in fact a DEI hire and has been a poor performer in her previous role at Boeing or are you just making that assumption because she’s a black female? This is the unintended trap that DEI hiring has created for blacks. There are some very talented and skilled blacks. However because of the whole DEI problem, and how widespread it is, we all leap to the default assumption that they have been “socially promoted.” Sadly it’s very often true and I personally don’t want to risk having a black doctor or lawyer without careful research first, but I think we have to be cautious about blanket assumptions that ALL black executives et al are DEI hires. I don’t want us to fall into own trap of becoming de facto racists.
Question: “are you just making that assumption because she’s a black female?”
Answer: “No. Most definitely Not”
To the contrary- you are assuming the bad performance is isolated to only the previous employer.
If you doubt the validity of my comment, take a look at the stupid box of rocks that made this DEI hire. Then research online how abrubtly SHE left her former employer. The word you are looking for rhymes with tired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfnpTJOTrXY&t=718s
She is now making lives miserable at Disney. They deserve her soooo much.
Agreed.
Making racial assumptions at the individual level is racism.
Making racial assumptions at the collective level is simply statistics.
On the former, you haven’t sufficiently worked in a corporate environment where this has taken place in spades.. In such an environment, you have to be even more wary of your white co-workers. The “blue falcon” racial ally is every bit as terrible as the black person who was sky rocketed up the ladder well beyond their capabilities.
If you haven’t experienced the careers and lives destroyed in such a dystopia directly- you can’t honestly dispute the damage and hell it creates nor the truth of it- especially when an EXACT example of it is laid at your feet. I didn’t just randomly search for “fat stupid black female VP”
Once you’ve experienced a collective of these grifters who create black only cabals and career trajectories- setting special travel rules to attend “black engineering” conferences while revenue is in the toilet- all while running the company into the ground THEN and ONLY THEN can really weigh in on the damage this has created.
I think Dylan Mulvaney might be able to turn things around for Nike.
Throw out your hands /
Stick out your tush /
Hands on your hips /
Give ’em a push /
You’ll be surprised /
You’re doing the French Mistake!
Voila!
Nike’s decline can’t credibly be blamed on “woke” marketing. Its own financial results point much more clearly to weaker product momentum, intense competition from brands like Hoka and On, struggles in China, and problems with inventory and its direct-to-consumer strategy. Social and political messaging may have alienated some customers, but there is no solid evidence that it was a significant driver of Nike’s overall decline.
Good news about Nike!
I stopped buying Nike products after the company enshrined Krapernick.
Nike apparel on others is a tell that they are not red pilled.
Marketing clowns are seldom the brightest bulbs on the tree.
Wise words from Jordan.
I’m reminded of when Star Trek Discovery launched in 2017. It was announced that the Klingons (the bad guys in this version) were modelled on Trump supporters.
How dim do you have to be to announce this publicly ? I mean, you’ve reduced the likelihood about half the country will watch your show.
And yet, it lasted five seasons, because it satisfied the bosses’ narrative.
Now contrast this with the single season awarded to “gentler” satires of liberalism, such as The Goode Family, Bordertown, The Chair, or In The Know.
They’re not there to entertain you. They’re there to propagandize you and get their own egos stroked.
Glad the don’t buy Nike campaign was successful and they are in the toilet.
I remember saying to myself I will NEVER buy a Nike product ever again and I never did.
E Howard Hunt: you may be correct that there are other parallel causes, but you are demonstrating (willfully?) the exact response the liberal woketards use. YES, it is exactly the reason. I don’t buy Nike anymore either because of Colin K. So I buy other brands like Hoka. That is the whole point!
I am a conservative, but also a stock analyst. I won’t succumb to wishful thinking.
Between the Chinese market collapse and the stupid decision to decimate sales at walk-in shoe stores in favor of online sales, almost all of the decline can be accounted for.
The Nike Factory Store on MLK in Portland was closed because the locals shoplifted it blind. Woke eat their own.