In 1964, a company manufacturing sports apparel called Blue Ribbon Sports was founded. They changed their name to Nike in early '71, named after the Greek goddess of victory. The swoosh symbol and "Just Do It" came after.
Michael Jordan made their shoes famous, and my favorite sponsor of the shoe was Steve Prefontaine; perhaps one of the most famous track and field runners, whose story is the epitome of the underdog hero, and who was a pupil of Bill Bowerman, a guy who trained over 30 Olympic athletes. They used to have quality atheletes push their shoes: Carl Lewis and Jackie-Joyner-Kersie to name a couple.
So my conundrum is this: Your company is represented by an ancient goddess of victory, honorable victory on the playing field. You've used victorious people in the past to represent you--victorious, popular and famous--smart idea. Now, they have picked a mediocre pro athlete to represent them, one who is most famous for kneeling! Just to remind people: In football, KNEELING means QUITTING!
I could perhaps understand why they wouldn't pick, for example, Tim Tebow as their spokesman. He kneeled to honor a higher power than some petty greek god, and the translations of his actions would not seem to fit the companies' philosophy, in spite of the fact he was a better player than their current spokesman.
Even if you just don't care about the miserable conditions, essentially slave labor, that are used to make the shoes, even if you were a heartless "victory-monger" so to speak, wouldn't you find the current promotions weak, and inconsistent with the companies main theme? And why is this new spokesman kneeling? So he says, in opposition to oppression! How does that square in any way?
The whole thing to me seems to be a blasphemy, wrapped in hypocrisy, and buried the chaos of our political culture.
Much of the world today has become opposite what is normal... you might call it upside down or orwellian. Nike and the sports industry are not immune from this. I agree with you kneeling is so wrong. It's possible that they are seeking out public comment and creating a slow conditioning of the public to accept things that we would not normally accept. I don't know. A good article you provided though thank you so much. @steveitt