Washington Examiner columnist Guy Benson said Nike’s removal from the S&P 100 renewed criticism of its political missteps, arguing the company focused too much on progressive messaging and not enough on business fundamentals.
“If I were a shareholder, I’d be demanding to know, given the plunging stock value, strip from the S&P 100, closing stores across the country, I’d want to know how much time and effort was spent debating in the board room how plus-size the mannequins should be, versus the things that made the company into the great company that it was for so long,” Benson said on Fox Business’s The Bottom Line on Tuesday.
Nike is being dropped after losing more than $200 billion in market cap since 2021, resulting in nearly an 80% drop within the last five years, according to Fortune.
“There were plenty of bad decisions, businesswise, that led to this moment,” Benson said.
Benson highlighted when former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, a Nike sponsor, complained about a Fourth of July design made by the company in 2019, arguing it was offensive.
The shoe featured Betsy Ross’s American flag, which consists of 13 stars arranged in a circle and stripes representing the original colonies.
“Nike has chosen not to release the Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July as it featured the old version of the American flag,” Nike said in a statement after Kaepernick complained that the design was from an era when slavery existed.
“If Nike is now saying that the American flag, Betsy Ross, all that, is too offensive in his grievance constellation, I’m not sure my hard-earned money’s going to that company anymore, and it hasn’t ever since, and I am certainly not alone,” Benson said.
Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney also struck a partnership with Nike, drawing backlash over the biological male modeling female sportswear.
Mulvaney modeled the clothing in an Instagram post in 2023, wearing leggings and a sports bra.
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The collaboration drew boycotts of the brand as people were outraged over the advertisement.
“I think they [Nike] are kidding themselves if they don’t understand that their dissent into hardcore, left-wing politics did not play a pretty significant role in all of this,” Benson said.
Benson said Nike needs to “rectify some of the business-related mistakes that they’ve made, independent from the politics.”
“I think what Nike is experiencing is a very intense woke hangover,” he said. “It took a while to get here, but boy, it has hit very, very hard.”
Benson argued that Nike was “alienating half the country” in its business decisions, leading people to take their business elsewhere.
“They also have to figure out, are they an institution that’s been fully captured by the Left?” Benson said. “Do they have the actual, like, muscle memory to go back to just being a politically neutral sneakers company, apparel company?”
Benson highlighted one of Michael Jordan’s most famous quotes, “Republicans buy sneakers, too,” which he said during the 1990 U.S. Senate race in North Carolina.
Benson said the brand has lost sight of themselves over the years.
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“It seems like they really took their eye off the ball.”
Nike will exit the S&P 100 on Sept. 21.