In this episode, Scott Becker discusses Nike’s recent stock performance, its shift from a competitive-driven brand to a socially conscious identity, and what it might take to regain its edge.
Chapter 1: What does 'Be Like Mike' mean in the context of Nike?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. In the old days, we used to cheer for Nike, be like Mike, and a lot more.
Chapter 2: How has Nike's brand evolved over the years?
Since back in the day where Nike just stood for utter competitiveness, it's worked hard to change its brand into being cool, to being different, to being something else besides just the utter competitiveness that people like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods sort of represented. And again, it's hard to have grown up in my genre, my vintage, and not be a huge Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods fan.
even if they've got their flaws like all of us do. And they play in a very big state, so you see those flaws big. So here's what's going on with Nike. Nike is down another 5% today. It is down 9% or so year to date. It's down 30% in the last 52 weeks. It just came out with earnings that were okay. Revenues were beat expectations, but the expectations were about a 10% drop from year over year.
So if I was Nike, I would go back to attacking everything with competitive fervor as opposed to every single sort of like social cause of the day. Because as much as the social causes are cool, some of us agree, some of us disagree, whichever the social cause of the day is that they've got going on. But I do love my Nike high-top golf shoes.
And even though I'm the only person in the world that thinks that a middle-aged man looks good in those high-top golf shoes, I still love them. Thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Again, the lesson for Nike is be like Mike.