In Nike's research and development laboratories, engineers and designers were expanding their discoveries. "I remember that in stores in Alsace, they called them 'Adidas Nike.'" Scoring Michael Jordan "With your name and the sportspeople you know, you could start recruiting athletes for us." Initial stages were complicated: "Nike was not well-known," said Ms. "Would it interest you to come in on this? We're a small American company," Jacques Noé asked his former swimmer, Sylvie Charrier (now Sylvie Farrell). But the French market rested on a partnership formed in the swimming pool. In France still, the marathon runner Raymonde Cornou was continuing to import shoes and outfits for her store in the 17 th arrondissement of Paris. The proposed sum amounted to a third of my salary. Thompson - and his boss Geoff Hollister - also knew how to be generous: "When Adidas donated two pairs of training shoes and one pair of spikes per year, we provided a new pair almost every two weeks, depending on the athlete's needs."ĭominique Chauvelier, a bank employee and French marathon champion, was contacted by a Nike representative in 1981: "How much do you want?" He said, "To have a pair of shoes was already something extraordinary. These trips are the only good thing we can get from your running!'" For a good cause, Mr.
"We offered them vacations to Sunriver or Hawaii after an event, so that their spouses would say: 'Stay with Nike. To help their protégés finance travel, an assistance program was set up with the help of travel agencies or airlines.
"We couldn't pay the athletes, so we had to be creative," continued this former University of Oregon student who became head of international partnerships at Nike. To seduce the rising stars of running, the Kenyan Henry Rono and the American Alberto Salazar, then the British Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe, they resorted to "not entirely ethical" methods, Peter Thompson said today. While their rivals sponsored teams, they focused on athletes. Unconvinced by the results of traditional advertising, the co-founder of the brand, Philip Knight, and his men wanted to go faster, further and higher with their highly personalized marketing policy. But it was behind the scenes that the Oregon company would achieve its greatest coup, with a basketball player whose name was then still known only to insiders: Michael Jordan. It was all a bonus for Nike, which equipped Mr. In Los Angeles, in 1984, the performances of the American sprinter Carl Lewis and the fall of the public's favorite Mary Decker in the final of the 3,000 meters. The Polish pole vaulter Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz giving the finger in Moscow in 1980.
Nadia Comaneci's prowess in Montreal in 1976. The 11 athletes of the Israeli delegation shot dead by a Palestinian terrorist organization in Munich in 1972. There's many highlights: The raised fist of John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the podium of the 200 meters in Mexico City in 1968. With the help of worldwide broadcast television, each iteration of the games left a strong image, with a trace of achievement, failure or scandal. Since the end of the 1960s, the Olympic Games have developed dramatically. But it was no longer limited to runners, extending its interest to tennis and basketball players. In the early 1980s, the Oregon company still had a marketing policy targeting selected athletes. The Nike saga: The deal that powered the Air Jordan By Eric Collier and Anthony Hernandez Published on Jat 12h30, updated at 12h30 on July 22, 2022