Nike Trivia
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98 free Nike trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
44 free Nike trivia questions with answers. Nike is a company built on stories: a track coach ruining his wife's waffle iron, a design student paid $35 for a logo the founder didn't like, a slogan borrowed from a death-row inmate, and a rookie's banned red-and-black sneakers that became a $5 billion brand. This quiz covers all of it, from Blue Ribbon Sports selling Japanese shoes at track meets to Air Max, Vaporfly and the Kaepernick campaign. Expect questions on the founders and their Oregon roots, the classic silhouettes (Cortez, Air Force 1, Dunk, Air Jordan, Air Max, Mag), the ads and slogans, the acquisitions and the controversies. About a third are easy enough for anyone who has laced up a pair; the rest will test a sneakerhead. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, mostly Wikipedia's Nike articles, and each question shows its citation.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Nike takes its name from the Greek goddess of what?
Victory
Victory personified, she joined Zeus against the Titans, and Hesiod says he kept her by his side ever after.
Q 02Under what name was Nike founded in 1964?
Blue Ribbon Sports
Blue Ribbon Sports was a name Phil Knight made up on the spot when a Japanese shoemaker asked which company he represented.
Q 03Nike's two co-founders were Phil Knight and which University of Oregon track coach?
Bill Bowerman
Bill Bowerman saw himself as a teacher first, and rather than 'coach' he went by a title of his own: 'Professor of Competitive Responses'.
Q 04Before making its own shoes, Nike began by importing running shoes from which Japanese maker?
Onitsuka Tiger
Onitsuka Tiger's maker later became Asics; Knight toured its factory in 1962 and came home with a deal to sell its shoes.
Q 05Roughly how much did Nike's forerunner take in during its first year of selling shoes, 1964?
$8,000
$8,000 was the whole first-year take, earned by Phil Knight selling imported shoes from the back of his car at track meets.
Q 06Which kitchen appliance did Nike's coach co-founder borrow from his wife to make a grippy sole in 1971?
A waffle iron
A waffle iron, a 1936 wedding gift, was ruined when he poured in urethane and it sealed shut; he went out and bought more.
Q 07Nike's 1972 'Moon Shoe' got its name because its tread was said to resemble what?
Astronaut footprints
Astronaut footprints from Apollo were fresh in mind; the hand-cobbled pairs went to runners at the 1972 US Olympic trials.
Q 08Who designed the Nike Swoosh logo in 1971?
Carolyn Davidson, a design student
Carolyn Davidson, a design student, met Phil Knight on campus when he overheard her say she couldn't afford an oil-painting class.
Q 09How much did the Swoosh logo's designer charge Nike for it in 1971?
$35
$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.
Q 10Runner Jeff Johnson, Nike's first employee, is credited with what contribution?
Coining the brand name
Coining the brand name spared the world 'Dimension Six', the name Phil Knight himself wanted for the shoes.
Q 11Which was the first running shoe Nike released under its own name, in 1972?
Cortez
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.
Q 12Which rival's threat over its 'Azteca Gold' shoe stopped Nike's founders calling a running shoe 'Aztec'?
Adidas
Adidas got there first; 'Aztec' had honoured Olympic host Mexico City, so the founders named the shoe after the Aztecs' Spanish conqueror instead.
Q 13Which 1994 film character gets a pair of Nike's first running shoe and becomes a famous runner?
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump made the white, red and blue pair so famous that fans still call that colourway by his name.
Q 21Frank Rudy, who pitched Nike its Air cushioning in 1977, had trained in which profession?
Aeronautical engineer
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.
Q 22Which designer conceived the Air Max after starting at Nike designing stores?
Tinker Hatfield
Tinker Hatfield trained as an architect and spent four years drawing Nike's shops and offices before he ever designed a shoe.
Q 23Which Paris landmark inspired Air Max's see-through sole?
Centre Pompidou
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.
Q 14Nike's 'Just Do It' slogan was coined in 1988 by which advertising executive?
Dan Wieden
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.
Q 15The ad man behind 'Just Do It' credited the inspiration to the last words of whom?
Gary Gilmore, executed killer
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.
Q 16Which rival was outselling Nike in the US when Just Do It launched in 1988?
Reebok
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.
Q 17What was Michael Jordan's first Nike deal, signed in October 1984, worth in total?
$2.5m
$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.
Q 18In Nike's famous 'Banned' story, how much did the NBA fine Michael Jordan per game for his red-and-black shoes?
$5,000
$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.
Q 19The 'Jumpman' logo comes from a Jordan photo originally shot for which magazine in 1984?
Life
Life ran the leap before the 1984 Olympics, with Jordan in New Balance; Nike restaged the pose a year later in its own shoes.
Q 20Which 1982 Bruce Kilgore design was the first basketball shoe to use Nike's Air cushioning?
Air Force 1
Air Force 1 pairs were so common in Harlem that they were nicknamed 'Uptowns'; the all-white low remains the big seller.
Q 24The 1985 Nike Dunk first came in colours made to match which teams?
College 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'.
Q 25The limited-run Nike Mag of 2011 and 2016 replicates a self-lacing shoe from which film?
Back to the Future II
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.
Q 26Which musician performed at the 2008 Grammys in a prototype of his own Nike shoe?
Kanye West
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.
Q 27Where is Nike's world headquarters campus?
Beaverton, Oregon
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.
Q 28Which Oregon distance runner became Nike's first signed track star?
Steve Prefontaine
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.
Q 29Which film director played the fast-talking Mars Blackmon alongside Michael Jordan in Nike's Air Jordan ads?
Spike Lee
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.
Q 30Nike made its first uniforms for a professional team in 1979. Which team?
Portland Timbers
The Timbers played in the old North American Soccer League; the first Niketown store opened in Portland in 1990.