Georgia college to end relationship with Nike over Kaepernick ad
A small college in Georgia is cutting its ties with Nike in response to its new “Just Do It” ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick.
Truett McConnell University’s president, Dr. Emir Caner, said in a statement posted on the school’s website that it “will no longer purchase or carry apparel by an athletic company that uses someone to market their products who ‘mocks our troops.'”
{mosads}“For Nike to then hire Colin Kaepernick, a person known for wearing pigs on his socks, mocking law enforcement, kneeling against our flag, and mocking our troops, is reprehensible to my family and to the Truett McConnell family,” Caner added.
Last week’s statement noted that Truett McConnell, in Cleveland, Ga., would discontinue its “relationship with Nike in athletics and our campus store.”
“Any profits from remaining Nike gear sold through our campus store will be directly donated to Wounded Warriors and the Fraternal Order of Police,” it added.
The decision came just days after Nike unveiled an ad campaign featuring Kaepernick, an NFL free agent who became the first player to kneel during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality and racial injustice.
The protests have continued in the following years, with a pair of Miami Dolphins players kneeling during the anthem of the team’s NFL season opener on Sunday.
Kaepernick has not been signed by an NFL team since being released by the San Francisco 49ers following the 2016-2017 season.
President Trump was one of many people to voice outrage at Nike’s decision to make Kaepernick the face of its new ad campaign, which features the message, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.”
“Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts,” Trump tweeted last Wednesday.
A small, private college in Missouri, College of the Ozarks, also announced that it would end its use of uniforms displaying the Nike logo.
Despite the public opposition, Nike’s online sales grew 31 percent in three days following the launch of the campaign, according to data released from Edison Trends.