As a Duke basketball fan for life, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans. I have nothing but respect for him and the program. That being said, I cam across this article from Matthew Kish of the Portland Business Journal. He did the audacious (and probably obvious) thing and submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to see the contracts 125 FBS schools have with Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour.
In exchange for shoes, cleats, and jerseys, the schools have some very interesting stipulations in the contracts inserted by the shoe companies. If Izzo is getting a large annual salary from Nike, I can only assume Coach K has a similar salary from them as well. I wonder what Kish will turn up about Duke and the other ACC schools. Maryland's contract with Under Armour might be worth taking a look at...
Coaches should not be able to have any voice in choosing which company will supply the gear his players wear and schools should not be able to accept any payment for choosing the suppliers. (By the way, K is on the Board of Nike, and I believe earns several million for doing so.) This serving as a marketing tool for product sullies higher education, and makes college sport into the biggest marketing game the world has ever known. These practices should stop, but they obviously won't.
If you want to see how far this can go, check out a half hour ESPN piece comprising a tour of a new practice facility Nike's founder built for the University of Oregon, his alma mater. Obscene. High end Italian leather lounge furniture looking out through huge glass walls on two practice fields, an outdoor veranda with chairs that could pass for pieces of museum quality sculpture, player lounge, recreation, and video rooms for chilling out, a video room to watch film, all of which are state of the art and wreak of the indulgences of a billionaire, offices that are similarly over the top, glass walls that move, a meeting room that is space age and beautiful (the walls, above incredible wood paneling are a high gloss black material that serves the double function of looking terrific and serving as "blackboards" that erase magically on the push of a button, the finest quality of woods and stone used throughout (this is best exemplified by the floor in the weight room--a gorgeous floor made of a Brazilian wood floor, the wood just happens to be the hardest in the world, so much for global warming). There is much more only I began to become ill watching so cannot remember.
The captain of the football team, an extremely well spoken young man, said with a straight face that the opulence of the facility gave the players an added incentive to win, to play all out. He said the same thing about the fact that Nike surprises them each game with a different "outfit," helmets through shoes, to give the players that feel of specialness we all need to do our best.
So, who pays for all this? The workers in South East Asia who work for pennies an hour, and the schnucks who can't afford it spending hundreds of dollars on Nike product each year.
And, "you tell me, over and over and over again, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction."
I don't see K, but I do see Big John Thompson
http://nike.q4web.com/Investors/Corp...s/default.aspx
Originally Posted by greybeard
(By the way, K is on the Board of Nike, and I believe earns several million for doing so.).
Not only is K not on the board as Billy Dat notes, but the several million dollars figure for board service is, not surprisingly, grossly exaggerated, and if true would represent the largest U.S. public company board fee for an outside director by a large margin.
Now I do recall reading back in 2004 when the Lakers came calling that Coach K's contract with Nike was worth about one million annually, but my memory has been mistaken before.
An active coach on Nike's BoD would be a huge conflict of interest (for Nike, less so the college).
It looks like Tim Cook, who graduated from Fuqua School of Business at Duke, is on the board of Nike. I'm mollified that a Dukie is on the board. I just wish Cook could exert some pressure to bring back those glorious blue road jerseys! When was the last time we wore those, against North Carolina in 2004? That ended well.
Jarhead, our name comes from paying homage to a fighter squadron in WWI. I doubt they were blue.
Understand that fashions change - and that the players are college kids : and college kids care about fashion.
Black isn't "pushed" by Nike. It's requested by the players. If Black gets us bonus points for the recruits, then we should wear them. The fact is they look good. If your only reason to rail against them is that "Blue" is in our name, then it's time for you to drop the crusade and embrace them, because you'd have to be color-blind or seriously fashion-challenged to think they DON'T look good.
I, for one, am so happy that baggy shorts became mainstream, because I would hate to think what my 40+ pick-up games would look like if everyone wore short shorts - blech!
I didn't say Duke Blue was Black. I said the Black uniforms are awesome - and they are. And in case you haven't noticed, there is an AWFUL LOT of navy blue Carolina gear floating around - and it looks good. In fact, their football team wears that color quite a bit at home. Nobody complains, because it doesn't weaken their school color. It's just a different look.
Our football team has a set of silver pants (though we haven't worn them in a long time). Nobody complained that silver wasn't a school color. It's about creating a good look.
Another thing - I find it hard to listen to Dukies complain about black uniforms when the students (for decades) show up for games wearing anything BUT blue.
In the 80s and 90s, it was fashionable to NOT wear blue. Pink, green, aqua, orange, whatever you had, you wore. The bookstore sold the T-shirts. We bought them and wore them to the games. They all said DUKE, but the color wasn't important.
Now, of course, they wear costumes. I haven't quite understood that, but it's what they like to do. They have fun with it, and it's their thing. Honestly, it's better than everyone in the student section wearing a duke blue shirt saying "K's Krazies" or sometihing stupid like that.
Well, our players, from basketball to fencing, also like to express themselves with cool uniforms, not just the same old blue/blue and white/white. I will continue to wear my Scheyer and Williams jerseys (BLACK, of course) with pride - BECAUSE THEY SAY DUKE! along with my navy blue (not Duke Blue, either) Johnny D 24 that somehow made it into Fan Attic 2 years ago.
Actually, cf-62, the French soldiers from whom Duke adopted the nickname "Blue Devils" were blue. Or, at least their uniforms were a "distinctive blue", according to Duke University's own archives. They also wore a "flowing cape and jaunty beret". Look, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but to assert that the black uniforms look good as if it's a fact is just wrong. I, for one, hate the black uni's and happen to think that true "Duke blue" is a really beautiful color that I wish our teams would wear more often. But hey, that's just my opinion.
You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
http://library.duke.edu/uarchives/hi...lue_devil.html
What an outlandish, completely false statement. Where did you come up with this? A quick google search for "nike board" (top result) would have been helpful here