Case Study #1: Alyson Felix & Nike

Allyson Felix is a track and field superstar winning six Olympic gold medals and eleven World Championship medals throughout her professional career. She remains one of the most decorated athletes to participate in the Olympics and surpassed Usain Bolt’s record for Track and Field medals. She is now the most decorated track and field athlete in the world. With all that being known, she was sponsored by Nike. In 2017 she wanted to expand her life experiences into the realm of motherhood. With that happening, she was aware of the stigma against maternity in her sport, but she wanted to be a mother. Upon her pregnancy, the renewal contract for Nike came out at the end of 2017. She noticed Nike offered to pay her 70% less of what she was promised for her previous contract. Although this was “the kiss of death” of her career, he becoming pregnant was not a valid or ethical reason to drop her contract money. She posed the question to Nike and simply asked to not be punished if her first few months after childbirth were nit at the standard as they were before pregnancy. Nike declined her offer and her contract was dropped. Felix soon dropped out of her sponsorship with the company and this blew up. She went public with this issue she was facing and expressed how her initial reasoning for teaming up with Nike was because of heir core values matching the once she has set for herself. She was also offered more money to partner with other companies but once again believed in Nike and what they stood for and she ultimately regretted the years spent with them.

This was a crisis for Nike and was also unethical for them to make the written stipulation of someone worth not by their talent and shown success but for something as pure and natural as childbirth. For this company to diminish her worth by 70% and expecting her to accept it. She said in the New York Times article, “My disappointment is not just with Nike, but with how the sports apparel industry at large treats female athletes. This isn’t just about pregnancy. We may stand behind the brands we endorse, but we also need to hold them accountable when they are marketing us to appeal to the next generation of athletes and consumers.”, which shows her passion and disappointment in the sports apparel industry as a whole.

Nike struggled with their loyalties. It seems as if they are “loyal” to their publics if society points a different way but behind clothes doors, they show loyalty to themselves and the breadwinners. Pregnant women are not seen as breadwinners in society so they did not stand up for the value she contains, instead they gave her less money at a time she actually needed more and declined her request for time to get back to her old self. This was never supposed to be known to the public and that is where the problem is. When Nike stood with Kapernick by using him as the headliner in their 30th anniversary “Just Do It.” campaign, he was a breadwinner at the time. They hid it to the public by expressing they where choosing the right side of justice but that was not the case, they stood with him for the positive view of inclusivity and did nothing to actually help the cause. This for sure makes me look differently at Nike but it also makes me more consciously aware of how companies handle their business in the public eye vs in the board room. They were ethnically and morally wrong, but jokes on them because within ten months she became the world’s most decorated professional track and field athlete. How’s that for a 70% value decrease?

As the publicist for Allyson, I believe having her out for interviews talking about the injustice was something very smart. Her not doing video-graphed interviews is a big reason for my belief in how the situation was handled. It is very on brand for the athlete she is. She is known for being aggressive on the track but not problematic. She came back silent but deadly after the ten months along with showing Nike they had such wrong views on women blessed to bare children in a powerful position in their life.