In case you’ve been living under a rock these past few days, Nike has had a rough time this week.
Between the unveiling of their universally reviled “Specter Edition” NBA jerseys to their stock taking a nosedive, the company that was once seen as unsinkable is starting to take on water.
Things have gotten so bad for Nike that they’re set to be booted from the S&P 100, a sign that the company is trending in the wrong direction.
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OutKick’s Craig Carton, a self-admitted “Nike man,” thinks he knows what the issue is, and if you’ve been paying attention, it shouldn’t come as a shock to you.
Craig Carton speaks at Fox News Channel Studios in New York City on Sept. 4, 2025. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)
“This is part of the problem right here,” Carton says as he points at a picture of the aforementioned Specter Edition jerseys. “Nike decided, apparently, to hire a blind creator to basically pull a Jackson Pollock and just start ramming paint at the wall.”
If you’ve seen the jerseys, Carton is spot on.
I’ve likened them to a Windows screensaver from the 90s that has been ripped from a dying computer monitor, but Jackson Pollock is a solid pull as well.
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May 24, 2024; Eugene, Oregon, USA; A Nike swoosh logo at Nike by Eugene. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)
“Part of the reason for Nike’s downfall is garbage like this,” he explains.
But, as Carton alludes to, it’s only part of the problem. The other half of the issue is more historical.
“In 2018, Nike decided to get in bed with Colin Kaepernick,” Carton recounts. “And they scrapped ‘Just Do It’ and they started a new slogan, which was ‘Dream Crazy.'”
“The only thing crazy that they did was partner with a lunatic who hates America.”
Carton’s point is well received, and anyone who had any sort of foresight could have predicted that once the “woke” fad — which is all it was in the first place — died down, it would no longer be trendy to partner with these characters from the lunatic fringe.
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Colin Kaepernick No. 7 of the San Francisco 49ers kneels for the national anthem before a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Levi’s Stadium on Oct. 23, 2016, in Santa Clara, Calif. (Getty Images)
Nike did so anyway, and now the proverbial chickens have come home to roost.
It doesn’t stop there, though, as Carton continues to explain Nike’s follies, citing their pulling of the Betsy Ross Edition shoes in 2019 per Kaepernick’s request.
Then, in 2020, a slogan change from “Just Do It” to “Don’t Do It” in the wake of the George Floyd protests further sealed the fate of the athletic apparel giant.
“So the slogan that made Nike popular… they decided to do the exact opposite by starting a new slogan,” says Carton.
Finally, in 2023, Nike made the same mistake Bud Light made by deciding to partner with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, destroying a decades-long campaign with Brandi Chastain as the centerpiece of their sports bra ads.
Dylan Mulvaney accepts the Streamy Award for Breakout Creator onstage at The 2023 Streamy Awards held at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel on Aug. 27, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Rich Polk/Penske Media via Getty Images)
“They made Dylan Mulvaney the face of their sports bra program,” Carton explained. “They took this amazing, unique moment in the history of women’s sports, and they bastardized it by bringing it to a transgender woman.”
Carton is, of course, referring to the moment in the 1999 Women’s World Cup, when Chastain scored the game-winning goal in the Cup Final and removed her jersey to reveal she was wearing a Nike sports bra.
If anyone in the marketing offices at Nike is still confused as to why their stock keeps plummeting, send them this clip.
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History class is in session, and Professor Carton is being generous enough to give you the answers to the midterm.
