IF things keep going the way they are, in the not-too-distant future just about everything in the world will be owned by Disney, Microsoft, and Nike. White’s right in
picking fight with NikeGreat, you say: Watches, computers and shoes for everyone!
Sorry, but this is really not a good thing, sports fans.
The buying public has been slipped a collective Mickey when it docilely accepts Disney's slick marketing techniques. Here's a good one: it creates and controls demand for its products by taking them off the shelves for seven years at a stretch. You think ultimate fighting is the baddest, most violent sport on the planet? Check out the video section at your local Disney store a couple days before "Sleeping Beauty" is put down for a long nap.
Disney's so powerful it got away with calling a National Hockey League team the Mighty Ducks.
Then there's King Geek, Bill Gates. He's got so much money, he rented a Lanai for his honeymoon. That's right, not a lanai, a Lanai. All this guy wants to do is control all the ways you receive and disseminate information for your entire natural life. I don't like him because it's his fault no good sports computer games are compatible with my MacIntosh.
BUT when it comes to big-time, corporate hypocrites that affect sports, you can't beat Nike.
One sad thing about Nike, like Disney and Microsoft, is that it was a good company that just got too big for its britches. I remember when Nike specialized in running shoes. Back in 1977, I wore an ugly pair of boats called waffle trainers for cross country and track practice. The only thing they had in common with the yet unborn Air Jordans was the swoosh.
But they were good shoes that served a purpose, cross country training. I believe they were made in America. And the swoosh was distinctive and stylish.
Later, when I became a gym rat, I owned a pair of Air Jordans. They were good basketball shoes, but that's all they were - shoes. I wasn't transformed into a skywalking, dunking machine.
Today, the ubiquitous swoosh (Penn State football players wear no names on their jerseys, but they wear Nike labels) is a symbol of many things that are wrong with today's society.
The least of them - though annoying in its own right - is everyone wearing unimaginative casual attire (next time you're at a ballgame, try to find someone not wearing a swoosh. It's like searching for a woman without a Calvin Klein T-shirt at the mall).
The biggest is insidious racism. Just ask Reggie White.
NIKE uses inexpensive overseas labor to make its products. White, the star defensive lineman of the Green Bay Packers, takes exception to this, saying there are many people in America, especially African-Americans - a large target demographic of today's Nike products - who can use the work.
"The reason they have these sweatshops is for cheap labor," White said. "They'd rather hire the cheap labor than hire the kid in the neighborhood who is buying their shoes. There are people who need jobs here."
Others have criticized Nike for this. But what is unique here is that White is the first high-profile athlete to do so.
And that he is under contract to Nike.
When I found out about the way Nike produces its products, I was irritated because of the high-moral road the company likes to take in its marketing. Take, for example, the brilliant but pompous ad campaigns celebrating Tiger Woods' minority heritage and promoting sports for girls.
These ads had nothing to do with Nike's moral integrity and everything to do with selling lots and lots of shoes.
Reggie White, an ordained Baptist minister, is one of the most active humanitarians in sports.
Still, some might say he is the hypocrite . . . for ripping Nike, which pays him between $200,000 and $250,000 a year.
"Nike has treated me well," White said. "But I'm not going to lie to you. I've been disappointed with them."
I say right on, Reggie. Just Do It.
Dave Reardon is a magazine editor and freelance
writer who has covered Hawaii sports since 1977.
He can be reached via the Star-Bulletin or
by email at dreardon@hmsa.com.
