01 Oct Nike’s Phil Knight Reflects On Success & Future Competition Before Stepping Down
Nike co-founder Phil Knight will step down as the brand’s chairman in 2016. But before stepping down, Knight is looking back at the industry his brand has dominated, and forward to the competition Nike will face.
In an exclusive interview with USA Today, Knight reminisced on some of the criticism the brand received in its early days, which proved to be unwarranted and wrong.
“There’s no better example that Nike has lost its way than they paid $250,000 for a North Carolina basketball player,” Knight said to USA Today, referring to a 1984 article written in Fortune. The player Fortune was referring to was Michael Jordan, who through the Jordan Brand (owned by Nike) brings in $2 billion a year through shoe and apparel sales, according to the article.