The year is nineteen. Eighty eight a new commercial appears on these costs. The country like most effective commercials. This one is simple and sure it features Walter, stag an eighty year Old Union organised around seventy miles on reporting, these famous in San Francisco Bay area for running shortlist, from fishermen's Warped Sausalito and back in full view of thousands of mourning commuters stack, gleefully crosses the golden gate. Bridge camera, zooms and capture the breath from his mouth is her slapping the asphalt yeah, draws to a close on a black screen and three words just do it. Those words have become synonymous with Nike. As the signature swoosh,

but at nineteen eighty eight tagline was seen as something of a gamble, a big statement. It Developed by Dan Weedin, the co founder of the add, firm hidden in Kennedy, the inspiration bizarrely enough final words of the infamous murderer. Gary Gilmore in nineteen. Seventy seven is the firing squad train their guns on Gilmore. He called out to them. Let's do it weedin Abby, marketer, didn't love the context, but then again You didn't have to know where he got the idea from right. All they had to do was bond of the word, which they did soon just do it. Is appearing on billboards magazine, a newspaper rag and in more tv commercials, it becomes larger for people trying to push themselves to do something big. Do something: tough, the most

They must have. These adds airs a couple of years later and nineteen nine, unlike the world's tax by the new ad focus on just one athlete: instead whole parade of celebrity Superman. I signed tonight. You Michael Jordan rise. Toward the rear weighing Gretzky his blood hair perfectly quarter Jackson, Jack, hammering pitch into the atmosphere and spiky filmmaker we are currently holding up a Nike snake. Again. The ad ends on the words just do it. Just it's a simple memorable punchy trifecta of words that logic in the brain. Consumers that Nike gear they came bullock doing almost anything Nike the most popular sneaker company, the country finally has a slogan worthy of its name.

From wondering this is business. I'm David Brown, we ve been telling the story of the war for sneakers supremacy between Nike and Adidas. This is Epoch five rebound a lot has already happened and we get it if you have a little bit whiplash. So, let's get back up to speed shall wait. You recall that once upon a time it was data that helped usher in the age of the modern sneaker from its origins in pre World war to Europe. But then Nike shows up because it's based on the West coast of you, as it has a better If on the american consumer than the german old timers starting in

nineteen seventies and especially in the nineteen eighties Nike. Explodes flights really takes off, The company builds a reputation for cutting edge, seized. It attracts the biggest athletes on earth that roads out advertising campaigns like just do it further solidify its dominant and Adidas Adidas. Adidas. Just keep shrinking the rearview mirror until the late nineteen. Eighty four, this chairman where's dastard dead at the age of fifty one. Its leadership decides to sell to a french business. Man names Bernard Tapie. This is a total reversal of fortunes Nike one time. Underdog is now on top and its Adidas, that struggling to catch up with a competitor with much deeper pockets and in each to innovate, but Adidas isn't dead. Yet in the step, two showed Adidas lured a pair of former ninety executives, Rob Strasser and Peter more to its german headquarters. Under their guidance, the company decides to refocus its efforts on what it does best solid,

should all athletic where in classic style today, we catch up with stronger and more it's early. Eighteen, ninety three about five years after the debut of Nike is very first just do it advertisements. Stronger and more still heading up. A consulting company with Adidas is their primary client. Strong around this time. It Adidas past into the hands of another french business man. This one is named Robert Louie, Dreyfus, weed. Is this a cousin of the actress, Julia Louie Drivers, she lies in turning around failing company, but he's button down corporate type, these wild haired and loud? A cigar, being self described, gambler Raw Strasser, is also wild. Haired loud and hard living in Strasser, Louie Dreyfus recognizes not just a kindred spirit, but a man who can The data is fight their way back into the? U S. Market demand.

Who feel night once called is envy P in February Ninety ninety three Lily Dreyfus cuts it you're, with stronger and more to buy out their consulting company in Portland and re purpose. This around property is the new headquarters of Adidas America, name, Strasser the CEO of Adidas America and more the creative direct Start up via begins to reign the cluster of bill, is it serves as the home base of Adidas. America is a far cry from the glass. Wild grandiose city of the global h, Q, Germany, there boxes piled up Beware shoe samples on top of every available workspace. Through it all rampages Strasser, with its three hundred pound folk and his pension for colorful hawaiian shirts, the urgency is employees to strike fear into the competitors on the other side of town to put a target and ninetys back

Suffice to say that none of this makes Phil night particularly happy. He had had a bitter fall now withdraw your years earlier still at least part of him respects his old employees gusto we were both born. Compete and we were both bad forgiving. Your right years later in his memoirs, I'd away, stronger and more set about raising Nike. Ninety Ninety three: when Nike executives, return for a big shoe trade show one of the first things they see at the Portland Airport or banners bearing their competitors Mark three white stripes. Compliments of the Adidas employees, there's not just compare gestures, either stronger and more rack up some real wins early on Superman. Claudia Schiffer, the paparazzi magnet is spotted sporting. Indeed, America gear. So is Madonna. But trousers raided Adidas America Short, while the company

treat in Germany, he starts grabbing at his chest, is transported to Munich where he dies at forty. Six, his lifestyle is finally caught up with him. Ideas, name named Steve when they head up bits. Adidas America Steve Win. A Portland based law partner replaces Strasser with more remaining in his job is creative director, the new team. Helps to spearhead the creation of a massive football field. Sized hospitality suite at the side ninety ninety six summer, Olympics in Atlanta, where seventy Adidas sponsors grab metal Donovan Bailey Canadian Sprinter, sets the world record in the one hundred metres

once again, as was the faced with Jesse Owens back in nineteen thirty, six, the sees Adidas on the feet of the fastest man on the planet at Edison still trailing Nike by a considerable margin in the United States, Ninety ninety six, for example, Nike, has about thirty percent of the american Sneaker Market Indeed, this has only around six percent, but that six percent that's six per, It is a marked increase over the four percent. The company, had just three years earlier and theirs it since, among analyse an industry, insiders that Adidas is on the rise. Track they're doing exactly what they need to do. The american staff by american designers, based on what american consumers want and remember

Strasser Moors recommendation to bring back vintage Adidas style, the Gazelle. And sombre sneakers or reintroduced into the american market. Quickly become staples, begrudge Roxy another odd, Strasser innovation, Align, called Adidas Equipment, focuses on stirred functional athletic gear and they start selling like wildfire sort about a misery roads through adivasis, Portland officer, still, the company. Shows that if it truly wants to reclaim the market led from ninety one day to climb from six percent of the market, to thirty, more it'll have to rack up a whole lot more sponsorship deal, but how exactly Adidas America lacks the disposable income of its rivals over and burden What little cash it is able to scrape up goes to promising players like Kobe Bryant who's been recruited

you're only or by a data's prior to Bryant stay view in the NBA copies of promising get, for. Indeed, us make no mistake, biggest basketball star since Michael Jordan, but still here, enough so Adidas America gets creative. In ninety. Ninety seven, a man they MIKE Wadsworth, swings by Adidas America headquarters? Wadsworth is a big guy thick crew, the shoulders with neatly parted silver hair and a face like a chunk granite in it. Hey Day, Wadsworth play football professionally up in Canada, but now it is fifty He settled into a gig is athletic director for Notre Dame Notre. Dame is, of course, home to one of the most storied teams in college football, team with a rabid fan base loaded, Is so big that has its

Television contract within BC to air all its games national make making the sponsorship deals. It cuts back to the really important to the apparel company. I might mention John Robinson go to companies. Is they want a real notary aimed at fifty seven thousand seven hundred up until now, Notre Dame has been aligned with Nike but Adidas. Here at the fight in Irish may be in the market for a better deal. Robert Herb, the head of marketing, Adidas America greets Wadsworth at the door, the Adidas America Warehouse on the fringes of Portland, the two men walking side because urban, show Wadsworth anything splashes. The Nike campus herb is decided. A up. Adidas America H q to play a part in the part today is that of high tech. Laboratory herb is picked up a bunch of why

lab coat and he's got all these guys wearing them. Best of all Holding a treadmill and set it up next to a panel of blinking light is special effects: Ph D resistance, and here's where we test our dear top of the line stuff very impressive before the Notre Dame athletic Director leaves urban. His team present a handful of blown up pictures, recognize these our current jerseys? You will notice that their Nike logo, the Swedish, sometimes appears on the front of the Jersey. Where do the words Notre Dame appear on the back? That's right, So what do you think? Nike cares about most Notre Dame or Nike. What you mean Wadsworth worth likes. Would he hears soon? The news is public. Today is leaving Nike for ideas.

It's a deal that will help open all sorts of doors for the three strikes and the United States. It's also a deal that serves as official noticed, Nike Adidas his back these days, you ve got a lot of options to choose from to keep yourself informed at a time when back matter more than ever, the economist is a weekly magazine that sift through the noise focusing the essential information that tells the real story. I recently read how Loki Dutch Company has become the biggest monopoly and ship making. This is a sort of story that the EC Miss does so well before anyone else is talking about it. Yet the inside scoop on a story that everyone will be talking about the weeks come. If there's one magazine, I cannot do without its the economist. It's a smart guy to the forces impacting your world and you can get twelve weeks access now for just twelve dollars for your twelve dollars. You'll get twelve bread issues delivered your door. A fantastic digital offering

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Robert or beer. Ninety. Ninety seven the same year that Adidas snatches Notre Dame away from Nike Rob the head of marketing for Adidas America's in his office in Portland, when the phone rang Robert Derek Schiller, I'm with the New York Yankees betray for Here we are looking to forging apparelled sponsorship deal for the Yankees. The appeal of such a deal is obvious. The notorious free spending team, the Yankees it certainly use the cash, but also in unmatched opportunity, for whatever company provides that year and Where does not hide the fact that he knows the Yankees or wail of again we're Talkin everyone, Nike Reebok, all of em designated one in I'll, be there tomorrow shutters impressed no rapid, any other company has been so enthusiastic, and he's even more surprised when, a few days later, Robert Louie Dreyfus, the head of all of Adidas joy urban Schiller in New York. They sit down with the these team owner, George Steinbrenner

Steinbrenner and Louie Dreyfus get along well and they quickly hammer out a deal. I did as to pay. Ninety three million dollars over ten years do outfit than New York. Yankees is the third blockbuster sponsorship. In the space of two years, the first had been Kobe Bryant, with Nike declining to outbid Adidas on the player. The second had been no date, and now now Adidas has the Yankees big names in college, football, professional, basketball and professional baseball respectively in the effect is felt pretty quick in ninety ninety one. The year Adidas America moved Portland accompanies. U S. Revenue is about a quarter of a million, but by the end of ninety ninety seven, it's up to one point. Six billion

with the exception of the Kobe Bryant one market Adidas any. It is the market that has become the true premier showcase for sneakers in America, who talked about the courts of the national basketball. Remember that a data In the nineteen seventy had the vast majority of professional basketball players in a stable through that eighteen, Eightys and Ninetys, and now the early two thousands those had been all but a raised is the Jordan manage dozens of variants, become the most coveted shoes on earth. No matter what kind of Eager Adidas trots out in some of the shoes are very good it seemed to make a den and Nike supremacy and then the worst happens. Adidas loses Kogi It doesn't happen overnight. Adidas. Able to get Bryant is a rookie, because, although the kid is obviously very good, his talent isn't fully realise he's not Jordan. In its first year on the court's he come relatively cheap

initially for a newly ascendant, Adidas Kobe is the gift that kept on giving every championship, be one every highlight really appeared in fans we're getting an Iphone the Adidas bread from I d, ninety six to the summer of two thousand to Kobe Place exclusively in Adidas shoes, a partner the eels most famously they can be eight with their chunky here. And zigzagging lines which ones crossed the Stick other like a snake whereby the time could be steers. The makers, through three consecutive national championships in two thousand two thousand one in two thousand to he started to get itchy every other big player. It seems is where Nike is, in the end, its the cubby too, that seals the deal sneaker designed in cooperation with the automaker ADI Adidas in

visions, it is sharing some of the same aesthetics is the outer TT sports car. The Kobe two's are big and listless and ugly, and they sell terribly Bryant is done with the data so done that in two thousand to Bryant pays a rumoured, eight million dollars out of his own pocket to break his contract with Adidas in two thousand three he signs of forty million dollar five year deal with Nike between CO, in Lebron James, who had been signed by Nike to a ninety million dollar deal out of high school He now has almost all of the top talent in the NBA locked up, and it will for years to come. Things: look even brighter and two thousand three when Nike acquires converse and its historic line of all star sneakers still Nike is about to undergo a period

tumult from its earliest days. Nike and fill night have been synonymous yes bill. Bower men had been the brain behind the earliest sneakers, but it Phil Night, with his market instincts kept Nike on track and night takes great pride in his empire. I always A thrill, a shot of adrenalin when I drive through the intersection of the campus, is two main streets, but night is found himself wearied by There is now a decade, long controversy over conditions in the overseas factories. Nike you, is to make his shoes. Nike has acknowledged some of the crew Susan, was legitimate and accompany it play to do better, going so far as to agree to independent audits of the overseas factories late, The company will even open entire department task, with improving conditions in its manufacturing centres. Still

The controversy, royals onwards there's a segment of the public who see. Nike is synonymous with sweat shops and shoddy quality. There are street protests. There are protests on college camp, since there is even a media stir caused by Jonah per ready, the future founder of buzz who uses a Nike design, your own sneaker website to order a of shoes, emblazoned with the word sweat shop in any Two per ready, Nike refuses to design the sneaker for ready, publishes the correspondence embarrassed the hell out of Nike feel no feel a sense of betrayal it. How is company is being portrayed? He describes this. Feeling in his memoirs, shoe dog went reporters set a factory was unsatisfactory. They never said how much better it was than the day we first went in They never said how hard we worked with our factory partners to upgrade conditions to make them safer and cleaner. They know

said these factories word ours that we were renters. One among many tenants and then personal tragedy strikes Vill night in two thousand for night in his wife pity, taking it an afternoon screening of Shreck too about half way through the movie night catch side of an employee, making his way down the aisle towards him You gonna need to come with me. Please, outside The employer delivers the news night son, Matthew his die while scuba, diving in Central America his wife, collapses. Phil night struggles to process the news himself and a few months later, he stepped down ceo retaining his teeth. As chairman of the company's board I'll pass on the chief executive mantle to William Perez, formerly the head of a sea Johnson, the cleaning supplies company, whereas

who has no experience in the athletic apparel business, doesn't last very long on January night, two thousand six night walks into Peres's office and takes a seat at a large round conference table. For several minutes night talks about mundane matters, and then he gets down to the point. It's it's not working, it's time to go! We're gonna look elsewhere for leaders, but Peres's and ready to walk appeal the decision to the board sure the board deferring tonight promptly turns Perez down later that month, at a conference call with investors. Night reveals the identity of the next Nike CEO Mark Parker, who join Nike. All the way back in nineteen. Seventy nine is a footwear designer in the company's New Hampshire offices. How much nights decision to replace press has to do with Nike competitors is unclear, but market pressure. Almost

currently plays a role as Phil Knight. No Adidas has been on a spending spree, starting with a one point. Thirty five billion dollar deal to acquire the french Athletic Company Salomon, which has a a thing like that compete directly with night and then Two thousand five Adidas makes a game. Changing ramshackle will alter the sneaker landscape, Adidas Spin, three point: eight billion dollars to buy Reebok Boston Based Sports Apparel business deal, pays mean dividend the Ba had to deal with Reebok in place for all players to wear Reebok, shirts and short after Reba, is acquired a data it's the rights in in the season starting in two thousand six, every ballplayers wearing the three strikes, it's the longer term outlook that really unnerved Nike by purchasing real, Adidas now owns the second and the third largest sneaker companies in the United States. Adidas

thousands of employees and it brings its market cap to eleven point five billion dollars in bring range of Nike zone. Sixteen billion all that distance Nike, it opened up between itself in Adidas when suddenly feels feel night like nowhere near enough distance it all and Adidas is only getting started after I can see your fill night stepped down in two thousand for William Perez. Former CEO Bessie Johnson was hired to replace him. Now he was putting a man with no experience and athletic apparel at the top of an athletic apparel company. Within it, a few years, whereas was out just wasn't good fit, what Nike needed wasn't more people it was the right person, the all star who could take him to the next level. They event They turned to Mark Parker, reformer, Nike footwear, designer who knew the Nike brand inside and out now how much time did Nike waste and how much money? they lose out on with.

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Reciprocated outcomes, dot com that zip recruiter, dot com, Slash be w zip recruiter this. Modest way to hire next time on business. Wars will bring. Things to the present day and answer a question that has, for decades seemed almost laughable can Nike be caught. I hope you enjoy this episode of business voice. Please subscribe on Apple pie, gas, sticker, Iheart Radio, where ever you listened pike ass like this one final on the episode note just tapirs swipe over the cover art. You also see some offers sponsors and we hope you will support our show by supporting them. If you like what you heard, we love for you to give us a five star rating and tell your friends how to subscribe to another way, Porthos, is to answer a short survey, wondering dot com, flash service and tell us business worst or, if you like to hear it,

Reading more about this topic, the author recommends to great books. He drew out for this episode, sneaker wars by barbarous Smith, and you don T remember by Nike powder fill my I'm your hosts David. Matthew Share wrote this story Karen was our senior producer and sound designed by Bay Area, sound our eggs, producers, are Marshall, Louie and or Non Lopez for wondering hey I'm Dyin Rubinstein. The host of wonder is show sports wars on sports wars. We dive into some of the biggest rivalries inside

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