PHIL KNIGHT AND THE ART OF VICTORY

The founder of Nike, among the richest men in the world, now talks about himself in an autobiography. Which explains how he beat the German giants.

It is highly probable that at this moment, while you are reading these words, you have a pair of Nike shoes on your feet. The company holds a market share of 38.23%, which corresponds to about 780 million of sports shoes sold each year. In 2022, the American sportswear giant entered for the first time in the Top 10 of Best Global Brands, the ranking of the 100 most valuable brands in the world by Interbrand. According to the report, Nike has reached a brand value of 51 billion euros, with a growth of 18% compared to the previous year. To give the idea, Adidas - Nike’s main competitor in sportswear - rose seven places in 2022, finishing at the 42 place of the rank.

Although Nike is one of the most famous and recognizable brands in the world, thanks to the presence of the iconic swoosh, not everyone knows the history of its founder, Phil Knight. The man started the company in 1964 along with his former athletics coach at the University of Oregon, the legendary Bill Bowerman. Since his university days - in factKnight was an assiduous runner, certainly not the best of the institute (his personal record was 4.13 miles) but undoubtedly one of the most passionate: his interest in athletics had led him to deepen and fully understand the sneakers market, an accessory that Phil considered decisive for a good performance.

At the time, Adidas and Puma, both German, represented most of the models sold on the American market. Yet Knight, during one of his trips to Japan, a country he loved especially for the values of unity and determination, comes to discover a brand that in the United States was still completely unknown: Onitsuka Tiger. Impressed by the quality of these shoes, he convinces Bill to join him to create Blue Ribbon Sports, the company that would distribute Onitsuka Tiger shoes even outside of Japan. As Knight wrote in his autobiography “Shoe Dog: “If Onitsuka can penetrate the market, and if he can bring his Tigers to American stores and sell them to beat Adidas...it could be an extremely profitable venture”.

And so it was: Knight joined the 30 richest people in the world, with a net worth of over $45 billion in February 2023, according to Forbes magazine. Yet, the road that led him to create the giant that we all know has not always been so bright: the huge success of Blue Ribbon and the rapid opening of new stores have left Phil in a precarious situation in which the entrepreneur has had to cope with increasingly high sales volumes, hiring more staff, creating more structures and especially ordering many more shoes.

The Japanese company - however - was not yet ready to guarantee new levels of production, so Knight decided to reunite his team and create a new brand. The initial idea was to call it “Dimension Six”, but in the end he prefers to opt for the name proposed by one of his employees, Jeff Johnson, who was inspired by the name of the Greek goddess of victory: Nike. Then Knight flew back to Japan to sign with producer Nissho Iwai for a Cortez version to replace the Tiger Stripes. In addition, he had the company’s new logo, the Swoosh, designed for only $35 by Carolyn Davidson, a Portland art student he met casually. Although Onitsuka had a competitive advantage with his own version of the Cortez, the newborn Nike reaches it quickly and goes much further, starting a legendary company history that has forever redefined the borders of sportswear.