NIKE, Inc.
Sportswear and athletic footwearFounded 1964- Updated June 2026
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: June 2026
CorpDigest
NIKE, Inc.
Company History
Founded 1964 in Beaverton, Oregon
Last reviewed: 2026-06-03 · By Swet Parvadiya
Track practice at the University of Oregon, sometime in the early 1960s: Bill Bowerman is watching his athletes run in shoes that he believes are materially worse than they should be. The available options are too heavy, poorly cushioned, and not designed with any input from the athletes who wear them. Bowerman begins experimenting with shoe construction in his garage, cutting apart existing shoes and rebuilding them with modifications. He also begins corresponding with Onitsuka Tiger, the Japanese manufacturer, about whether their designs could be improved.
Phil Knight had written a Stanford MBA thesis arguing that Japanese shoe manufacturing could disrupt the German-dominated athletic footwear market the same way Japanese cameras had disrupted the German camera market. After graduating in 1962, he visited Onitsuka Tiger in Kobe and secured a distribution agreement for the United States, then came back to Oregon and persuaded Bowerman — his former coach — to partner with him. Blue Ribbon Sports sold its first Tigers at a track meet in 1964, earning $8,000 in that first year.
The Waffle Trainer, introduced in 1974, was the product that made the Nike brand. Bowerman had been experimenting with waffle iron patterns for sole construction — the grid provided traction and cushioning in a way that flat rubber soles did not — and the resulting shoe became popular first with runners and then with the broader athletic market that was beginning to wear running shoes as casual footwear. Nike went public in 1980, giving Knight and Bowerman the capital to scale marketing and international distribution. The Just Do It campaign launched in 1988, created by Wieden+Kennedy, unified a diversifying product line under a single cultural identity that proved durable enough to still anchor the brand's marketing in 2025.
Phil Knight co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964 and became Nike's defining business builder. He recognized that distributing another company's shoes capped the upside, so he helped lead the 1971 shift to the Nike name, the Swoosh, and proprietary product direction. As CEO, Knight built the operating model around outsourced manufacturing, aggressive athlete endorsements, bold advertising, and global expansion. His most famous strategic decision was backing the 1984 Michael Jordan partnership, which turned Nike from a running and basketball challenger into a cultural force. Knight led Nike through its 1980 IPO and remained CEO until 2004, later serving as chairman. His lasting influence is a founder's belief that product performance and mythmaking are not separate functions. At Nike, the shoe has to work, but the story has to travel.
Bill Bowerman co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports with Phil Knight in 1964 and shaped the company's earliest product identity. While Knight built the commercial system, Bowerman tested shoes with runners, changed soles, altered uppers, and pushed for lighter, more functional designs. His waffle-sole work helped lead to the Waffle Trainer, a breakthrough that gave Nike a genuine performance story as it moved beyond distribution. Bowerman was less involved in daily corporate operations than Knight, but his influence was foundational: Nike's culture of product testing, athlete feedback, and performance language traces directly to his coaching methods. He also helped popularize jogging in the United States, expanding the market Nike would later serve. Bowerman's legacy is the idea that innovation begins with watching athletes closely enough to notice what slows them down.
Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman formed Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964, before Nike existed as a brand. The origin mattered because the business began with running shoes, track athletes, and Bowerman's habit of testing product ideas against real training needs. That athlete proximity became a durable part of Nike's product culture.
Blue Ribbon Sports moved toward its own identity in 1971 as the Nike name and Carolyn Davidson's Swoosh entered the business. The shift changed the company from a distributor of another supplier's shoes into an owner of product design, brand meaning, and consumer trust. It also created the visual asset that still carries much of Nike's recognition.
The Tailwind introduced Air cushioning to running in 1978, according to Nike's own Pegasus history. Early Air products still had stability issues, but the technology gave Nike a platform it could refine across Pegasus, Air Force 1, Air Max, and later lifestyle models. The milestone matters because Air became both a performance story and a visible design language.
Nike went public in 1980, giving the company access to public capital as it expanded marketing, product development, and global distribution. The IPO marked the transition from founder-led growth company to a larger public sportswear business. It also set the stage for bigger athlete and brand investments in the 1980s.
Nike acquired Converse to expand into lifestyle footwear with a brand whose cultural meaning was different from Nike's performance identity. Converse gave Nike ownership of Chuck Taylor, One Star, and a youth-culture platform tied to music, fashion, and casual wear.
Nike acquired Bauer to enter hockey equipment and broaden its presence beyond footwear and apparel. The deal reflected a 1990s belief that Nike could extend its brand-management skills into more sport-specific hardgoods.
Nike acquired Umbro to strengthen global football, especially in markets where Umbro had heritage, team relationships, and deep recognition. The acquisition was intended to complement Nike Football and expand access to clubs, kits, and football consumers.
Nike acquired Zodiac, a consumer data analytics company, to improve customer lifetime value modeling and personalization. The deal supported Nike's direct-consumer strategy by helping the company understand purchase frequency, retention, and digital engagement.
Nike acquired Celect to improve demand sensing, inventory allocation, and predictive analytics across stores and digital channels. The goal was to use data to put the right product in the right market with fewer markdowns.
Nike acquired Datalogue to automate data integration and make consumer, product, and operational data easier to use across the company. The acquisition supported Nike's Consumer Direct Acceleration strategy.
Nike acquired RTFKT to explore digital sneakers, virtual goods, NFTs, and creator-led brand experiences. The deal reflected Nike's interest in protecting the Swoosh in digital spaces and learning from Web3-native communities.
Blue Ribbon Sports — the company that would become Nike — was founded on January 25, 1964 in Eugene, Oregon by Bill Bowerman, the legendary University of Oregon track coach, and Phil Knight, a former University of Oregon middle-distance runner Bowerman had coached and who had recently completed a Stanford MBA. The founding capital was $1,000, split equally as $500 from each founder, in exchange for an initial inventory commitment to import running shoes from Onitsuka Co. Ltd. of Japan (the maker of Tiger-brand shoes, later renamed ASICS). The business idea originated in Knight's Stanford MBA thesis, completed in 1962, in which he argued that high-quality, low-cost Japanese athletic footwear could displace dominant German brands (Adidas and Puma) in the US running market — analogous to the disruption Japanese camera makers were inflicting on Leica. After graduation Knight had traveled to Japan in 1962 and met with Onitsuka executives in Kobe, eventually securing the West Coast distribution agreement. Bowerman, who had been experimenting with running-shoe modifications for his University of Oregon athletes for years, was the natural partner for the technical and credibility dimensions. Knight initially sold the shoes from the trunk of his green Plymouth Valiant at Oregon track meets while working as a CPA at Price Waterhouse and later as an accounting professor at Portland State University.
Blue Ribbon Sports rebranded as Nike, Inc. in 1971, taking the name from the Greek goddess of victory. The rename was driven by the company's decision to design and manufacture its own shoes rather than continue as a distributor of Onitsuka Tiger products, after the Japanese relationship had deteriorated through 1970-1971 over inventory disputes and Onitsuka's attempts to bypass Blue Ribbon Sports with direct US distribution. Knight needed a name and brand identity for the proprietary products that BRS would introduce in 1972. The name 'Nike' was suggested by Jeff Johnson, the company's first full-time employee, who reportedly had it appear to him in a dream. The Swoosh logo was designed by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic-design student at Portland State University where Knight had been teaching accounting; Knight paid her $35 for the design in 1971. The Swoosh debuted on the Nike track shoes shipped to athletes at the 1972 US Olympic Trials in Eugene. Davidson received an additional gift of Nike stock from Knight later in the company's history, with the eventual value of that grant reportedly reaching seven figures. Bill Bowerman's other major 1971 contribution was the Waffle Trainer outsole pattern, allegedly developed by pouring molten rubber into his wife's waffle iron at the kitchen table in Eugene.
Nike, Inc. completed its initial public offering on December 2, 1980 on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NKE, raising approximately $26 million through the sale of 2.4 million shares at a split-adjusted price equivalent to roughly $0.18 per share (after multiple stock splits since IPO). At IPO the company had revenue of approximately $269 million for fiscal year 1980 (Nike's fiscal year ends May 31), approximately 2,700 employees, and operations across the US and selected international markets. The IPO valued Nike at roughly $400 million in fully diluted market capitalization. Phil Knight retained majority voting control through a dual-class share structure, with Class A shares held by Knight and other insiders carrying super-voting rights for board-nomination purposes while Class B shares held by public shareholders carried voting rights on most other matters. The structure has persisted through Nike's history and is one of the longest-running dual-class governance models in US public equities. Bill Bowerman sold a portion of his pre-IPO shares but retained a substantial position; many of Nike's earliest employees became multi-million-dollar shareholders through pre-IPO stock grants. The IPO timing was fortuitous as Nike's revenue grew to approximately $700 million within two years, with the stock substantially appreciating from offering levels.
Nike signed Michael Jordan to a five-year, $2.5 million endorsement deal in October 1984 — at the time the largest shoe-endorsement contract ever signed with a rookie professional athlete, exceeding the $250,000 Adidas and Converse had been offering. The Jordan signing was structured by Nike sports marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro, who had been hired in 1977 and was the principal evangelist for the deal inside Nike. The Air Jordan I shoe launched in April 1985, accompanied by a 'banned' marketing campaign exploiting the NBA's enforcement against the original black-and-red Air Jordan I (which violated then-NBA uniform color rules). First-year Air Jordan I sales reached approximately $126 million, exceeding Nike's most optimistic projections by a factor of three to four. The Jordan signature line has since grown into a separately reporting segment of Nike's business, generating estimated annual revenue of over $7 billion as of FY2024 — approximately 15% of total Nike revenue — and operating as Nike's most profitable franchise. The Jordan Brand was formally separated as a subsidiary in 1997 and is led by Michael Jordan in a continuing partnership through royalty arrangements that have reportedly paid Jordan over $1.5 billion across the relationship. The 1984 deal is widely cited as the single most consequential athlete endorsement in sports-business history.
Nike's revenue trajectory across the post-IPO period reflects compounding growth driven by category expansion, geographic diversification, and brand premium pricing. Revenue grew from approximately $269 million in fiscal 1980 to $1 billion in fiscal 1986, $3 billion in fiscal 1989, $9 billion in fiscal 2000, $19 billion in fiscal 2010, $39 billion in fiscal 2020, and $46.3 billion in fiscal 2024 (the fiscal year ended May 31, 2024). The growth has been punctuated by category and brand inflections: the 1985 launch of Air Jordan, the 1988 'Just Do It' campaign and Nike Air pricing premiums, the 1990s expansion into golf with Tiger Woods, the 2000s Converse acquisition, the 2010s digital direct-to-consumer buildout, and the 2020s pandemic-driven athletic-wear boom that lifted FY2022 revenue to $46.7 billion. Geographic expansion has shifted the mix: North America fell from approximately 60% of revenue in 2000 to approximately 42% in FY2024 as Greater China grew to approximately 14% and EMEA to approximately 27%. The revenue plateau through FY2023-FY2024 — Nike has effectively been flat-to-slightly-declining over recent years — reflects the operational challenges that prompted the 2024 CEO change, particularly weakness in lifestyle categories, wholesale channel deterioration, and increased competition from Hoka, On Running, and other premium-runner brands.