1964. The year Blue Ribbon Sports was founded by a University of Oregon track star and his coach. What started as a business venture turned into a billion dollar company. Phil Knight (the track athlete) and Bill Bowerman (his coach) had no idea what they would be getting into. It started in the Pacific Northwest, then expanded throughout the West Coast, to the East Coast, the rest of America and soon after, the rest of the World. It’s a motivational story for the ages: A 25-year-old college grad and his former track and field coach built the biggest and most recognized athletic apparel company ever.
1967. BRS and Onitsuka Tiger–a Japanese shoe brand–begin selling shoes at track meets in Oregon. The first Nike-designed shoe, the Tiger Cortez, released later that year and gained immediate success because of its original design and rare comfort. However, the relationship between both sides began to fade after BRS suspected that Tiger no longer wanted to work with them, and Tiger suspecting that BRS began selling shoes under a new name “Nike”.
1971. Blue Ribbon and Onitsuka Tiger officially split and BRS rebrands as Nike. Later that year, Carolyn Davidson–a graphic design student at Portland State University–first creates the iconic Nike Swoosh logo following numerous different sketches of potential logos. After Knight proclaimed “maybe it will grow on me”, Davidson was later rewarded 500 shares of stock of the company which is estimated to be worth about $1 million today (according to https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/history-of-nike-15057083).
1980. A star is born. After Bill Bowerman’s recent success with his new shoe design, “Waffle Trainer” (a waffle sole design which gave running shoes more traction and grip), Nike continued to grow. The company went public in late 1980 and was estimated to be worth roughly $180 million.
1984. Nike has partnered with many high-profile athletes, none more important for the company than Michael Jordan. After signing Jordan in ’84 and eventually launching the Jordan Brand, publicity and shoe sales went through the roof and put Nike on the map alongside the biggest sports and apparel brands in the World.
1988. Dan Wieden, co-founder of the highly successful advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy, creates the soon-to-be world famous tagline for an ad campaign: “Just Do It”. Since then, the tagline has a life of its own and is as synonymous with Nike as much as any other tagline in any other company.
1990. Nike relocates its headquarters into a nearly 300 acre campus in Beaverton, Oregon. Constantly expanding, the campus has 75 buildings as of 2022 and contains buildings named after several contributors and athletes.
2003. Nike signs LeBron James and Kobe Bryant to multi-million dollar deals, paving the way for the company to be the supplier of apparel for the NBA. The seven year, $90 million contract James signed with Nike was the richest shoe deal for any athlete at the time.
2015. In the summer of 2015, Knight announced he would be stepping down as chairman of Nike, and would be handing the reigns to CEO and president Mark Parker the following year. Parker still holds the position to this day.
2018. Nike, in a somewhat-stunning move, releases an ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick to a wide variety of praise and backlash. As part of the campaign, the slogan “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything” accompanied it. Although receiving mixed reviews, Nike made their statement by standing with their values.
2023. As of early 2023, Nike currently sits at a net worth of roughly $200 billion. Even through management changes, an up-and-down stock market and the COVID-19 pandemic, Nike still stands as the most successful and popular athletic apparel brand in the World.