Nike lost its cool

June 11, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

When the swoosh stopped soaring

In 2025, Nike's stock price dipped below $50—a level it hadn't seen since 2015. The company still sells more athletic shoes than anyone else on earth, but that's not what investors care about. What matters is growth, and Nike doesn't have it. The question that follows is uncomfortable for a brand that once defined cool: What happened?

The rise and unraveling of an icon

Nike's ascent followed a classic playbook: start niche, go mass. In the 1980s, the brand attached itself to Michael Jordan and, through him, to American iconography—independence, rebellion, personal willpower. The "Just Do It" campaign, launched with a commercial featuring an 80-year-old man running 17 miles each morning, sold a simple idea: individual effort can overcome anything. That message worked across the political spectrum in the 1990s and early 2000s.

But the cultural ground shifted. Over the last decade, as journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis told Today, Explained, conversations turned toward systemic forces shaping people's lives. The pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ethos that Nike had embodied began to feel dated. The company tried to adapt with what Lewis calls "social justice flavored marketing"—gestures toward progressive politics without necessarily following through on them in practice.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:01) **The Thesis: Nike is Uncool** - The episode opens by stating that Nike has lost its cultural cool, evidenced by weak sales and a stock price at its lowest since 2015.
2 (01:06) **The Setup: What Happened to Nike?** - Host Noelle King introduces journalist Amanda Chicago Lewis, who wrote "Nike Just Can't Do It Anymore" for The Economist, to explain the fall.
3 (02:00) **The Rise: From Niche to Mass Cool** - Lewis traces Nike's ascent to the 1980s Michael Jordan partnership, which transformed the brand from jogging shoes to a symbol of American independence and rebellion.
4 (03:48) **The Complication: Politics and the Kaepernick Pivot** - The cultural consensus on individualism broke down, and Nike attempted "social justice flavored marketing" without fully committing to the politics.
5 (05:36) **The Strategic Blunder: The Donohoe Era** - In 2020, new CEO John Donohoe, who didn't understand fashion or marketing, pivoted to a direct-to-consumer model, cutting out retail partners like Amazon.
6 (06:45) **The Perfect Storm: Tariffs and Fear of Trump** - Nike's reliance on outsourcing made it uniquely vulnerable to Trump's tariffs, costing the company a billion dollars.
7 (08:33) **The Legal Threat: The EEOC Investigation** - The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is investigating Nike's DEI programs for alleged "reverse discrimination," making Nike a test case for the Trump administration's focus.

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Show Notes

And once a brand has lost its cool, it's almost impossible to get it back.

This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King.

A'ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces wearing her Nike A'One player exclusive signature shoes. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

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