Nike's Stock Price Falls to Its Lowest Level in 12 Years

I used to buy Nikes exclusively. I knew my size in them and they fit right. No "in between sizes" for me.

And then they started the unending woke bullshit.

Dropped them like a bad habit. And it turns out that Asics and New Balance also fit me right. Oh, and also, that all of the innovations that Nike used to brag about like waffle soles and gel heel-cushions was now absolutely bog-standard sneaker tech that everyone utilized.

I wouldn't have discovered that, but Nike just kept pushing and pushing and letting me know they didn't want my patronage. So I found out that other companies made equivalents of Nikes but without all the fucking shitty attitude.

Seems like a lot of people had the same feeling.

From Colin Kaepernick to Dylan Mulvaney, Nike's decade of left-wing activism has finally caught up to it

Nike shoes and apparel once dominated cultural relevance, but the company's stock is now at a 12-year low

Nike spent much of the past decade making left-wing politics part of its brand and the company's stock hit a 12-year low this week.

Before we get into that, we should acknowledge that the "social justice" messaging isn't the only reason the company is struggling. Nike is losing ground to newer competitors, its products haven't created the same excitement and consumers aren't exactly eager to pay more for sneakers right now.

Still, it's hard not to notice what Nike has been doing while its business has sputtered: picking fights over politics, race, patriotism, transgenderism and DEI.

From Colin Kaepernick to the Betsy Ross flag, Dylan Mulvaney and a study involving "transgender" youth athletes that Nike quietly backed away from after OutKick exposed it, the company has built an impressive record of left-wing corporate activism.

In February 2026, it added an EEOC investigation into alleged race discrimination against white employees and job applicants to the list.

Nike wanted to be more than a shoe company. Mission accomplished.

Nike made its choice clear in 2018, when it put former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick at the center of its 30th-anniversary "Just Do It" campaign.

Kaepernick, of course, became a national political figure after sitting, and later kneeling, during the national anthem because he said he refused to show pride in a flag for a country that "oppresses black people and people of color."

He specifically cited "police brutality" and later wore socks to an NFL practice depicting police officers as pigs and showed support for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Nike decided he was the perfect guy to launch a campaign with the slogan, "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything."

At that point, Nike wasn't simply sponsoring a former NFL quarterback. It was elevating the most divisive figure in American sports at the time and daring consumers to take a side.

Some did. Nike received plenty of backlash, including videos of customers burning products or cutting the swooshes off their socks. But the company also received glowing coverage from corporate-media types who loved the idea of a massive American brand embracing extreme left-wing political messaging.

Nike didn't back away from the Kaepernick experiment, either.

The following summer, it pulled a Fourth of July-themed Air Max sneaker featuring the Betsy Ross flag after Kaepernick reportedly objected to the design. Nike said it halted distribution because of concerns the shoe could "unintentionally offend."

Think about that for a second. A company built around American athletes decided that a sneaker featuring the flag associated with the country's founding was too offensive to sell around Independence Day.

That was just the start, and I think I was still buying Nikes when this crap was going on. I wasn't happy about it, but whatever, I knew my size in Nike.

And then they started with the BLM shit. That's when I was done.

And then, of course, came Dylan Mulvaney.

This is where Nike's activism went from poor marketing tactics to something much more serious.

In April 2025, OutKick reported that evidence indicated Nike had helped fund a study involving "transgender" youth athletes as young as 12. The proposed research was designed to track athletic and physiological changes among young people undergoing so-called "gender-affirming care."

Researchers connected to the project said publicly that Nike had provided funding. Boston Children's Hospital magazine later described the research as being supported, in part, by Nike.

Nike initially would not answer OutKick's repeated questions. A company executive later said on background that the study "was never initialized" and was "not moving forward."

Then, trans-identifying researcher Joanna Harper, a male, said Nike had "pulled out" after "haters got wind of it."

So, which was it? Was the study never initialized, as Nike claimed? Or did Nike pull out after public pressure, as one of its researchers claimed?

Nike has never provided a clear public explanation that resolves that contradiction.

I didn't even know about that. (Or, if I knew, my nearly-29-year-old brain forgot about it.)

Nike's stock problems go well beyond its aggressive political messaging. But the company has spent years building a brand that often seemed more interested in impressing left-wing activists than connecting with consumers in middle America.

Corporate leftists defend turning their companies into leftwing propaganda outfits -- despite the fact that this is not the mission of the company, and not what shareholders buy stock for -- by claiming that this kind of leftwing political "goodwill" is a genuine intangible asset that justifies ignoring the company's chartered mission to pursue.

This has always been a lie. It has always been the case that they knew they were destroying shareholder value -- they just decided it was worth it to destroy shareholder value to push their personal fucked-up ideologies.

Now they're seeing proof -- they always knew this, but the proof makes it hard to defend against shareholder lawsuits -- that there's a lot of corporate badwill incurred in pushing an unpopular extremist ideology, too.

I don't think the shareholders alone should pay for the sins of the corporate officers. I sure wish there were some way to personally sue them for violating the corporate charter to become the Official Shoe of Antifa and BLM.

I guess the only penalty the ideologues will pay is losing out on future jobs -- but leftwing civilization-destroyers never pay that price, either. Communism, Inc. always has a safety-net job for them in a university or a leftwing taxpayer-grifting NGO.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:52 PM

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