The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 198 — Nike's talent exodus is a real thing
And these numbers make it kind of concerning
Gooooood morning, family! Happy Monday! Thank you so much for giving me a few minutes to kick your week off. Hope you had a fantastic weekend!
I finally bought my wedding suit, y’all! Wild story. They customized the wrong color BUT I ended up liking the color they sent. And the kicks match! The fiancé likes the look so I think we’re in the clear! July soon come.
Alright, enough about me. Let’s rock.
Exit stage left
The first few years of John Donahoe’s regime at Nike have been quite tumultuous for reasons both in and outside of the company’s control.
For example, you cannot blame Nike for dipping sales under a global pandemic. That happened to everyone.
On the other hand, you could blame them for, say, the souring relationship they have with their customers.
One weird undercurrent through all of that is a lot of people are leaving the company. And not just regular employees. We’re talking high-level execs, Matthew Kish of Business Insider reports.
The skinny: At least 20 “high-level executives” left the company in the first half of 2021, per Kish. At least another 20 “director-level” execs have left in the past 3 months.
I wrote a bit about that here and shared some thoughts on a few designers leaving the swoosh.
That’s huge. These are high-level decision-makers. Add those names on top of the hundreds of employees Nike laid off over the last few years and you’ve lost decades of experience in the span of a year.
That’s concerning: So many individuals leaving all within a calendar year signals something about the morale of the folks that work there and the things going on behind closed doors.
The bigger issue is all the institutional knowledge walking out the door. That’s important when it comes to repeating past mistakes and upholding the company’s ethos.
Russ Bengtson makes a great point here in this incredible thread on that.
Now, look. Nike is still Nike. They’ll keep on moving forward. People will always want to work at the Swoosh. Talent will always come through the door.
We’ve seen this before. In 2014 when folks like Marc Dolce, Mark Miner and Denis Dekovic left they didn’t bat an eye.
Of course, Adidas’ big run with boost followed. But they recovered with Virgil Abloh and Travis Scott and the Air Max 270 and a bunch of other stuff that worked.
It’s worth noting that we’re already seeing the competition rise up. Nike was reportedly concerned about New Balance’s jump. Adidas has also reportedly jumped over the Jumpman again with Jordan Brand.
Still, things have clearly changed. The luster that was once there doesn’t seem to be there anymore. And you can best believe Nike will do what they can to get it back.
Stop falling for Kanye
Kanye West is like DeMar DeRozan with that pump fake. He really gets the people jumping every single time.
What happened this time: He had the sneaker blogs and internet going crazy with a Jumpman logo he posted on Instagram.
There were no details on what it meant. No message. Just an eye emoji in the caption.
This followed Marcus Jordan saying he wanted to get Ye, DJ Khaled and his father, Michael Jordan, obviously, to sit down and work together.
Pump the brakes. None of this means anything. You won’t get Kanye and MJ in the same room working together. The simulation ain’t simulating that hard. You can watch one episode of The Last Dance and see that.
Jordan Brand and Adidas are competing to be the second most popular sneaker brand in North America. Adidas has the lead right now, per NPD Group’s Matt Powell.
A Jordan Brand x Adidas or Yeezy collab would be like scoring points for the other team. It’s just not happening.
So, sure. Maybe they have a conversation. And maybe they can be friends. But you won’t catch Michael Jordan in some Yeezys. Or Adidas. Or anything other than Jordan Brand, for that matter.
Just ask Lil Bow Wow what happens when you wear the wrong kicks around Mike.
SPECIAL DELIVERY: LAMELOOOOOOOOO
First episode of Special Delivery and we come with the brightest sneaker possible. Typical.
LaMelo Ball’s MB.01 is an incredible look and it also tells an incredible story about his uniqueness in the NBA both on and off the court. That’s what the whole “1 of 1” and “Not From Here” tag represents.
I think there’s another message there, too: And that message is this signature shoe and the one’s that come after it won’t be like Puma’s last. More on that in this week’s episode of SD.
Where dey at doe???
These CNCPTS x Nike Air Max 1’s keep coming across my timeline and I am here personally requesting that you stop retweeting these because I cannot have them yet.
This shoe is beautiful. It’s just beautiful. I don’t know what else to say other than that, please, give us a release date.
What’s droppin, bruh?
Adidas Dame 8 — Tuesday, January 25
Nike Dunk High “Panda” — Wednesday, January 26
Nike LeBron 19 “Christmas” — Wednesday, January 26
Nocta x Nike Hot Step Air Terra — Thursday, January 27
Atmos x New Balance 327 “Realtree Camo” — Saturday, January 29
Thank you so much for rocking with yerboi today. Y’all are the best, man. I hope you have a fantastic week.
Let’s chat again on Wednesday. Until then. Peace and love. Be easy, be safe, be kind. And we out.
-Sykes 💯