98 Fun Facts About Nike

Nike takes its name from the Greek goddess of what?

Victory personified, she joined Zeus against the Titans, and Hesiod says he kept her by his side ever after.

Under what name was Nike founded in 1964?

Blue Ribbon Sports was a name Phil Knight made up on the spot when a Japanese shoemaker asked which company he represented.

Nike's two co-founders were Phil Knight and which University of Oregon track coach?

Bill Bowerman saw himself as a teacher first, and rather than 'coach' he went by a title of his own: 'Professor of Competitive Responses'.

Before making its own shoes, Nike began by importing running shoes from which Japanese maker?

Onitsuka Tiger's maker later became Asics; Knight toured its factory in 1962 and came home with a deal to sell its shoes.

Roughly how much did Nike's forerunner take in during its first year of selling shoes, 1964?

$8,000 was the whole first-year take, earned by Phil Knight selling imported shoes from the back of his car at track meets.

Which kitchen appliance did Nike's coach co-founder borrow from his wife to make a grippy sole in 1971?

A waffle iron, a 1936 wedding gift, was ruined when he poured in urethane and it sealed shut; he went out and bought more.

Nike's 1972 'Moon Shoe' got its name because its tread was said to resemble what?

Astronaut footprints from Apollo were fresh in mind; the hand-cobbled pairs went to runners at the 1972 US Olympic trials.

Who designed the Nike Swoosh logo in 1971?

Carolyn Davidson, a design student, met Phil Knight on campus when he overheard her say she couldn't afford an oil-painting class.

How much did the Swoosh logo's designer charge Nike for it in 1971?

$35 was the designer's own figure, picked with no idea what to charge; in 1983 Nike added a gold Swoosh ring and company stock.

Runner Jeff Johnson, Nike's first employee, is credited with what contribution?

Coining the brand name spared the world 'Dimension Six', the name Phil Knight himself wanted for the shoes.

Which was the first running shoe Nike released under its own name, in 1972?

Cortez had first sold under a Japanese supplier's label; a court later let both firms sell the shoe, but only Nike kept the name.

Which rival's threat over its 'Azteca Gold' shoe stopped Nike's founders calling a running shoe 'Aztec'?

Adidas got there first; 'Aztec' had honoured Olympic host Mexico City, so the founders named the shoe after the Aztecs' Spanish conqueror instead.

Which 1994 film character gets a pair of Nike's first running shoe and becomes a famous runner?

Forrest Gump made the white, red and blue pair so famous that fans still call that colourway by his name.

Nike's 'Just Do It' slogan was coined in 1988 by which advertising executive?

Dan Wieden pitched the line to a lukewarm room at Nike; its first spot starred not a champion but 80-year-old jogger Walt Stack.

The ad man behind 'Just Do It' credited the inspiration to the last words of whom?

Gary Gilmore, an executed killer, told a Utah firing squad 'Let's do it' in 1977; the ad writer changed one word a decade later.

Which rival was outselling Nike in the US when Just Do It launched in 1988?

Reebok had ridden the women's aerobics boom past Nike in the mid-1980s; within a few years of the new tagline, Nike was back on top.

What was Michael Jordan's first Nike deal, signed in October 1984, worth in total?

$2.5m, about $500,000 a year, was a record for a rookie's shoe deal, and Jordan had been hoping to sign with a rival brand instead.

In Nike's famous 'Banned' story, how much did the NBA fine Michael Jordan per game for his red-and-black shoes?

$5,000 a game is the figure in Nike's telling, and Nike says it paid; league rules wanted shoes mostly white and matching the team's.

The 'Jumpman' logo comes from a Jordan photo originally shot for which magazine in 1984?

Life ran the leap before the 1984 Olympics, with Jordan in New Balance; Nike restaged the pose a year later in its own shoes.

Which 1982 Bruce Kilgore design was the first basketball shoe to use Nike's Air cushioning?

Air Force 1 pairs were so common in Harlem that they were nicknamed 'Uptowns'; the all-white low remains the big seller.

Frank Rudy, who pitched Nike its Air cushioning in 1977, had trained in which profession?

Aeronautical engineer Rudy quit the aerospace industry in 1969 to invent on his own; Phil Knight was won over by one run in a prototype pair.

Which designer conceived the Air Max after starting at Nike designing stores?

Tinker Hatfield trained as an architect and spent four years drawing Nike's shops and offices before he ever designed a shoe.

Which Paris landmark inspired Air Max's see-through sole?

The Centre Pompidou wears its pipes, ducts and escalators on the outside; the shoe's designer visited, then cut open the midsole so the Air showed too.

The 1985 Nike Dunk first came in colours made to match which teams?

College teams: for the 1985-86 season Nike sold top college sides' colours as matching shoes and warm-ups, under the line 'Be True to Your School'.

The limited-run Nike Mag of 2011 and 2016 replicates a self-lacing shoe from which film?

Back to the Future II showed the shoe lacing itself in 2015; the 2011 replicas, auctioned for Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's foundation, could not.

Which musician performed at the 2008 Grammys in a prototype of his own Nike shoe?

Kanye West wore the black prototype a year before the Air Yeezy went on sale; in 2021 that pair sold for $1.8 million, then the most ever paid for sneakers.

Where is Nike's world headquarters campus?

Beaverton, Oregon is only the postal address: the campus is an island of unincorporated county land, and Nike fought off the city's attempts to annex it.

Which Oregon distance runner became Nike's first signed track star?

Steve Prefontaine signed for $5,000 a year in 1973, when amateur rules still barred runners from taking endorsement money, a ban he fought loudly.

Which film director played the fast-talking Mars Blackmon alongside Michael Jordan in Nike's Air Jordan ads?

Spike Lee invented Mars for his 1986 debut, She's Gotta Have It; two Nike admen caught it at the cinema and hired the character, director and all.

Nike made its first uniforms for a professional team in 1979. Which team?

The Timbers played in the old North American Soccer League; the first Niketown store opened in Portland in 1990.

Which Beatles song did Nike use in a 1987 shoe commercial, prompting a lawsuit from the band's own company?

Revolution was licensed without the band: Nike paid the record label and Michael Jackson, who owned the publishing, so the Beatles' own company sued over a deal it had no part in.

Nike's 2018 'Just Do It' anniversary campaign around which athlete prompted some people to burn their Nikes?

Colin Kaepernick began the anthem protests in 2016; critics filmed themselves burning their trainers, yet one analyst found Nike's online sales rose in the days after the ad.

Nike withdrew a July 2019 Air Max 1 after one of its star endorsers objected to which design on the shoe?

The Betsy Ross flag, with its ring of 13 stars, was the design; Arizona's governor hit back within a day, ordering state incentives for a planned Nike factory withdrawn.

Lab tests found Nike's 2017 Vaporfly cut runners' energy cost by how much, a figure Nike put in the shoe's name?

4% was the average saving in lab tests on fast runners, enough that in 2020 World Athletics capped racing soles at 40 mm and a single rigid plate.

Which Nike tagline ran beside LeBron James on a ten-storey banner in downtown Cleveland until 2010?

We Are All Witnesses came down in July 2010, days after James left for Miami, as onlookers honked and hooted; a night skyline of Cleveland took its place.

Which coach's four-year doping ban in 2019 folded Nike's Oregon Project running team?

Alberto Salazar was banned on 30 September 2019; within two weeks Nike shut the team, calling the affair an unfair burden on its runners, while still backing his appeal.

In which California city did Nike's forerunner open its first shop in the 1960s, next to a beauty salon?

Santa Monica got the narrow shop on Pico Boulevard, opened by first employee Jeff Johnson so the tiny staff could stop selling shoes out of their cars.

Phil Knight's Stanford paper noted Japanese products had beaten German ones in which market?

Cameras: Knight had watched Japanese makers cut deep into a market Germany once owned, and reckoned cheap Japanese labour could do the same in running shoes.

What was Phil Knight's day job in the 1960s while he sold running shoes from his car at track meets?

Certified public accountant: he kept the books at Price Waterhouse, then taught accounting at a university, because the shoe company could not yet pay him a wage.

In 2016 Nike quit making equipment for which sport, keeping only its shoes and clothing?

Golf: with sales sliding, Nike dropped clubs, balls and bags in 2016, which sent Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy hunting for new clubs while still dressed in Nike.

Nike's Air Max Day falls every March 26 to mark the anniversary of what?

The first model's release, on March 26, 1987, is what the day marks, but the holiday itself is a marketing invention: Nike only declared it in 2014, 27 years after the shoe went on sale.

Nike's Free running shoe was inspired by a track team the company supplied with shoes doing what?

Training barefoot was the choice of a track coach Nike kept supplied with shoes; when its reps found out, the company answered with a flexible, thinly padded shoe sold for barefoot-like running.

Which brand made the signed 1984 Olympics Michael Jordan shoes that held the sneaker auction record until 2019?

Converse was Jordan's shoe at the 1984 Olympic final; he signed with Nike later that year, and in 2019 one of Nike's own first running shoes took the auction record from the pair.

In 2023 Nike announced it would stop using the skin of which animal in its football boots?

Kangaroo leather left Nike's Tiempo boots for a synthetic upper the company called a better performer, less than two weeks after Puma made the same switch for its King boot.

Which of these brands did Nike buy first, back in 1988?

Cole Haan made dress and casual shoes, Nike's way into the business-casual market; hockey, surf and football brands followed, but by 2012 Nike was selling Cole Haan to refocus on sport.

What was the title of Nike's 1977 ad, which pictured a lone, anonymous runner?

There is no finish line came from Seattle agency John Brown & Partners, yet Phil Knight stayed unconvinced by advertising and later greeted his next agency by saying he didn't like it.

Which NBA team initially wore the Jumpman logo instead of the swoosh under Nike's 2017 uniform deal?

Charlotte Hornets were owned by Michael Jordan, so his team alone wore his silhouette while the other 29 carried the swoosh; in 2020 the Jumpman spread to every team's Statement uniform.

In which city did the first Niketown store open, in November 1990?

Portland got the prototype: part shop, part museum of the brand, it was the test bed for a format Nike then copied in bigger cities around the world.

Nike's coach co-founder visited New Zealand, then co-wrote a 1966 bestseller on which fitness craze?

Jogging was the book's one-word title: 90 pages written with a cardiologist after he saw older New Zealanders running for fitness. It is credited with igniting the running boom in the United States.

Which stop-motion studio behind Coraline did Nike co-founder Phil Knight take over and hand to his son to run?

Laika began as Will Vinton Studios, a financially struggling animation house that Phil Knight acquired in 2002. It took the name of the Soviet space dog in 2005 and released Coraline, its first feature film, in 2009.

Which Brazilian's 2005 Nike crossbar advert became the first YouTube video to reach a million views?

Ronaldinho pulls on a new pair of boots, then appears to volley the ball off the bar again and again without letting it touch the ground. He had signed a ten-year Nike deal at the start of his career.

Which actor directed the 2023 Nike film Air and cast himself as company co-founder Phil Knight?

Ben Affleck plays the Nike boss opposite Matt Damon as talent scout Sonny Vaccaro. The two old friends also produced the film through Artists Equity, the company they had just formed together.

Nike developed the 2004 Livestrong wristband for Lance Armstrong's cancer charity in which colour?

Yellow echoed the jersey worn by the overall leader of the Tour de France. The bands became a fashion item across America within months, but Nike cut ties with the foundation in 2013.

Which Duke star's Nike shoe ripped apart 36 seconds into a 2019 game, hitting Nike's share price?

Zion Williamson sprained his knee when his foot ripped through the shoe, and Nike's stock lost $1.1 billion in value the next day. He still signed with its Jordan Brand that summer.

Which rapper's 2021 'Satan Shoes', custom Nikes said to hold a drop of human blood, led Nike to sue?

Lil Nas X created them with the Brooklyn art collective MSCHF, which Nike sued for trademark infringement. The settlement required MSCHF to offer a refund to any buyer who wanted to return a pair.

Which cartoon character enlisted Michael Jordan to outsmart a bullying team in a 1992 Nike Super Bowl ad?

Bugs Bunny and Jordan returned for a second ad in 1993, this time facing Marvin the Martian. The pairing was then pitched as a feature film, which became Space Jam.

Michael Jordan suggested which Oscar winner to play his mother in Air, the 2023 film about his Nike deal?

Viola Davis was the star's own idea for the part, though he was otherwise uninvolved with the production. He also asked for his parents' roles to be made bigger.

Nike's largest headquarters building, a million square feet in size, is named after which tennis champion?

Serena Williams helped with the design of the building, which is full of references to her career. Other buildings on the campus honour Mia Hamm, Jerry Rice and Nolan Ryan.

Which billionaire investor called Shoe Dog, the memoir by Nike's Phil Knight, the best book he read that year?

Warren Buffett praised its author as a wise, competitive fellow and a gifted storyteller. Microsoft's co-founder agreed, naming the 2016 memoir one of his five favourite books of the year.

Which filmmaker finally landed an interview with Nike's Phil Knight in his 1997 documentary The Big One?

Michael Moore spends much of the film failing to get company chiefs to face him during a book tour of 47 towns. The Nike boss is the one who eventually agrees to talk.

In 2019 Nike stopped selling directly through which retail giant to deal with customers itself?

Amazon lost the account that November, as Nike put its effort into direct relationships with shoppers. The move came a month after Nike announced a new chief executive.

Which maker of England's football kits did Nike agree to buy in 2007, only to sell it five years later?

Umbro went to Iconix Brand Group for $225 million in 2012. That same year the Football Association announced that Nike itself would take over making England's kits.

Nike sold the equipment maker Bauer in 2008 after more than a decade of ownership, ending its venture into which sport?

Ice hockey came to Nike through Canstar, the parent company of Bauer, which became a wholly owned Nike subsidiary in 1995. Bauer's roots lie in a shoe company formed in Kitchener, Ontario.

Which surfwear label, started by the man who had run Billabong's American licence, did Nike own from 2002 until 2019?

Hurley was sold to Nike by founder Bob Hurley, a former surfboard shaper who launched the label in 1999 after giving up the Billabong licence. Nike passed it on to Bluestar Alliance in 2019.

Nike supplied the official match ball of which football competition from 2000–01 until Puma took over in 2025?

The Premier League played with Nike balls for 25 seasons before the change of supplier. Nike's long kit deal with Manchester United had already ended in 2015, with Nike citing rising costs.

Which football club was the first sponsored by Nike's Jordan Brand, wearing its logo in the 2018–19 Champions League?

Paris Saint-Germain wore the logo on their third kits that season. Two years earlier the Michigan Wolverines had become the first American football team outfitted by the brand.

Which Kenyan ran the marathon distance in under two hours in Vienna in 2019, wearing unreleased Nike racing shoes?

Eliud Kipchoge clocked 1:59:40, two years after falling 25 seconds short in a Nike-organised attempt. Rotating teams of pacemakers meant the run was not eligible to be ratified as a world record.

Nike's 2017 Breaking2 attempt at a sub-two-hour marathon was staged on which Italian motor racing circuit?

Monza was chosen for its low altitude, calm weather and short lap. The fastest of the three elite runners finished in 2:00:25, a time that could not count as a record because pacemakers swapped in and out.

Which American won both the 200m and 400m at the 1996 Olympics wearing custom gold-coloured Nike shoes?

Michael Johnson became the first man to win both events at one Games, and his footwear earned him the nickname 'The Man With the Golden Shoes'. His 19.32 seconds in the shorter final was a world record.

Which US sprinter's 2019 newspaper essay accused Nike of refusing to protect athletes' pay after pregnancy?

Allyson Felix backed up two former Nike teammates who had already spoken out, and the company expanded its maternity policy that year. She went on to launch her own footwear company, Saysh, in 2021.

When Roger Federer's Nike contract expired in 2018, which Japanese company signed him for a reported $300 million?

Uniqlo's ten-year deal was reportedly worth about three times as much per year as his Nike one. Nike had once made him a personalised cardigan bearing his own RF logo.

Which tennis star, the first number one of the ATP rankings, was the first professional athlete to endorse Nike?

Ilie Năstase signed his endorsement contract in 1972, the year the Romanian lost an epic five-set Wimbledon final and won the US Open.

Mel Gibson's ad man steals a colleague's idea for a Nike campaign after learning to read minds in which 2000 comedy?

What Women Want sees Helen Hunt's character fired over the stolen pitch, which was aimed at female customers. The film was the fourth-highest-grossing release of 2000.

Which Texas Tech champion became the first women's basketball player to have a Nike shoe named after her?

Sheryl Swoopes gave her name to the Air Swoopes. She had won the 1993 NCAA championship with the Lady Raiders in her senior season.

Nike's Flywire threads, seen on shoes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, took their inspiration from which of these?

A suspension bridge was the inspiration: many thin cables put support only where the foot needs it. The idea came when a Nike innovator saw the long stitches an embroidery machine could make.

Which Team USA guard leapt over a 7ft 2in Frenchman at the 2000 Olympics in a pair of Nike Shox?

Vince Carter cleared Frédéric Weis wearing the Shox BB4. The French called it the dunk of death, and it went on to shape how the new range was advertised.

Which company teamed up with Nike in 2006 on a shoe sensor that sent running data to its music player?

Apple's iPod picked up the data from a small transmitter attached to or embedded in the shoe. The kit, announced in May 2006, also linked runners to an online community.

In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Kobe Bryant appears to jump over which speeding sports car?

Aston Martin made the car in a stunt that was widely considered fake. The Los Angeles Times pointed out that a real leap would probably have violated his Lakers contract.

Nike's Manhattan Niketown stood for two decades beside which Fifth Avenue skyscraper, whose owner was Nike's landlord?

Trump Tower is next door to 6 East 57th Street, the four-storey building put up for the store. After Nike left, the jeweller Tiffany used the space as a temporary flagship during a renovation.

John Donahoe, who ran Nike from 2020 to 2024, had earlier been chief executive of which online marketplace?

eBay hired him in 2005, after his 20 years at the consulting firm Bain, and made him chief executive in 2008. At Nike he followed a boss who had been with the company since 1979.

Which comedian voiced Lil Penny, the puppet alter ego of Penny Hardaway in Nike's 1990s adverts?

Chris Rock gave the puppet its voice through the mid to late 1990s, when Hardaway was starring for the Orlando Magic.

Nike outbid two rivals in 2005 to make the kit of which national cricket team until 2020?

India's first deal ran for five years and was extended twice, in 2011 and 2016. When Nike ended the contract, an arm of an online gaming platform took over as kit maker.

Nike runs its European operations from a headquarters in Hilversum, a media city in which country?

The Netherlands is home to the campus, in a town inside the Amsterdam metropolitan area. Hilversum's broadcasting industry grew out of a radio factory set up there in the early 1920s.

Nike is named after a Greek goddess whose headless winged statue from Samothrace stands in which museum?

The Louvre has shown the statue at the top of its main staircase since 1884. Missing both head and arms, the figure stands on a base shaped like the bow of a ship.

Which pro baseball and American football star fronted Nike's cross-training shoe adverts in 1989 and 1990?

Bo Jackson was shown trying his hand at everything from tennis and luge to auto racing and blues guitar. He is the only professional athlete named an All-Star in two major American sports.

Until 2006 Nike filled the cushions of its Air shoes with sulfur hexafluoride, rated the most potent what?

Greenhouse gas rankings put it top, at about 23,500 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a century. Its large molecules are slow to seep through rubber, which is what made it useful.

In 2017 Nike unveiled a sports version of which garment, designed for safety and comfort during strenuous exercise?

A hijab built for competition, the Pro Hijab was tested by elite athletes including the figure skater Zahra Lari before it reached the shops.

Which Golden State guard, originally signed to Nike, left for Under Armour in 2013 and became the face of its footwear?

Stephen Curry went on to win the first unanimous vote for the NBA's MVP award and became president of his own Curry Brand line. The partnership lasted through late 2025.

Which NBA star sued Nike in 2019, claiming it had copyrighted his 'Klaw' logo without his consent?

Kawhi Leonard had been a Jordan Brand athlete before reportedly signing with New Balance in November 2018, seven months before he filed the federal lawsuit.

Nike joined which US stock index in 2013, taking the place of the aluminium maker Alcoa?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the index Nike entered that year. Five years later the company ranked 89th on the Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations by revenue.

Elliott Hill, who became Nike's chief executive in 2024, first arrived at the company in 1988 as what?

An intern in 1988, he spent more than 32 years at Nike in North America and Europe before retiring in 2020. He was then brought back to take the top job.

Nike's first national television adverts aired in 1982 during the broadcast of which road race?

The New York Marathon broadcast carried three Nike adverts, the work of an agency that had only just been formed. Before that, Nike had hired a Seattle firm in 1976 as its first advertising agency.

A Junkie XL remix of which Elvis Presley song soundtracked Nike's 2002 World Cup advertising campaign?

A Little Less Conversation was first recorded in 1968 for the film Live a Little, Love a Little. The remix became a worldwide hit, topping the singles charts in nine countries.

Which European teenager scored 33 points at the 1998 Nike Hoop Summit, an event record that stood until 2010?

Dirk Nowitzki's display for the World team came a few months before he was picked ninth in the NBA draft. Enes Kanter finally beat the mark with 34 points.

Which NBA star argued in his own 1993 Nike commercial that athletes should not be role models?

Charles Barkley wanted parents and teachers, rather than players, to be the ones children looked up to. The advert set off a national debate, and a former US vice president praised it as a family-values message.

Worn-out trainers collected by Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe scheme are ground into granules used to make which of these?

Running tracks, playground surfaces and courts all use the material, which the company calls Nike Grind. The collection scheme began in the early 1990s.

Which animal appears as a stylised logo on tennis champion Rafael Nadal's customised Nike shoes?

A bull sat on the left shoe, while the right one carried his nickname, Rafa. Nike had earlier encouraged him to update his look to reflect his new status as the top player in tennis.

Which Houston rapper has released Cactus Jack editions of Nike's Air Jordan 1 and Air Jordan 4?

Travis Scott's first Nike collaborations arrived in 2017. One of his later designs made its debut on stage, during his own Grammy performance in 2024.