Last week the unimaginable happened to Nike: the shoe of the most heralded college basketball player, Zion Williamson, split apart; he hurt his knee and had to leave the game.
And it didn’t happen in a minor game. It happened just a few seconds into one of the most anticipated college basketball games of the year: Duke versus North Carolina. Reportedly tickets sold for up to $10,000; President Obama flew in to attend.
Is this going to be a disaster for Nike? Some people think so.
I don’t.
First, it’s a freak accident. Nike sells close to a billion pairs of sneakers a year, yet when have you ever heard of a new Nike sneaker breaking apart like that? They have a reputation for outstanding quality.
One WNBA player suggested it was a matter of Williamson using the wrong shoe: he is too big/heavy for the style shoe he was wearing.
And it was a minor injury. It appears that he’ll miss a week or two, but should be fully recovered after that.
Thirty years ago things might have been different. But Nike, and all companies with crises, are benefiting from our very, very rapid, 24/7 news cycles. They know that within a day or two people will be talking about something else. Politicians have learned how to take advantage of it, too: despite a photo of him in either blackface or a KKK uniform being found in his medical school yearbook, the governor of Virginia seems determined to ride out the storm. Three weeks later, he’s still in office.
Nike stock only went down about 1%. Airlines have had highly embarrasing videos of them mistreating passengers posted online but their stock, too, declined for just a few days and their sales took no hit at all.
Nike has one of the most valuable brands in the world, with an estimated value of $32 billion. Even as high profile of an accident as this will likely not affect them – unless it happens again. And again.
