In a shockingly candid press release this morning, Nike, the global sportswear titan, announced the termination of its $20 million partnership with Colin Kaepernick. The reason? The former NFL quarterback is, in Nike’s own words, “perhaps a tad too woke for our tastes.”
Kaepernick, the man behind the controversial NFL kneeling movement, had been working closely with Nike since 2018. The partnership spawned memorable campaigns like “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” However, as it seems now, perhaps Kaepernick believed in “a little too much” for Nike’s comfort.
The word ‘woke’, originally African-American slang, has become a rallying cry in recent years. It indicates an acute awareness of social and political issues, especially around race. Kaepernick, in Nike’s perspective, seems to have taken wokeness to a whole new altitude – a bit too high for the comfort of the shoe giant’s boardroom.
Jim Sneakerhead, a senior executive at Nike, commented, “We appreciate passion. We do. But Colin started attending our meetings barefoot, advocating for the rights of shoeless people. It became hard to sell footwear when our own ambassador championed going without it.”
Kaepernick’s commitment to activism and justice has never been in question. But according to inside sources, things took a peculiar turn during a recent photo shoot for Nike’s new line of football cleats.
The shoot, themed “Stand for something”, was intended to picture Kaepernick boldly upright, counterpoising his NFL kneeling image. However, the session was interrupted when Kaepernick insisted on “levitating for justice.” The photographers were left flummoxed, unsure how to capture a floating Kaepernick for a “stand tall” themed shoot.
The decisive incident, however, was Kaepernick’s proposal for a new shoe line – “The Bare Necessities.” These shoes, in Kaepernick’s vision, would be entirely invisible, made from air, and ethically perfect because they would involve no labor, no materials, and no cost. While undeniably eco-friendly, Nike’s design team struggled with the logistics of creating, well, nothing.
“We tried to humor him,” said April Lacedup, head of Nike’s design division. “We even held a faux launch event for ‘Bare Necessities’. But when Colin started talking about ‘the Emperor’s New Shoes’, we knew we were out of our depth.”
