Nike has been making headlines recently for its controversial advertisement with Colin Kaepernick which many perceive to be promoting a socially conscious message with progressive values. When it comes to political spending, however, Nike and its employees have spent more than three times as much supporting Republicans compared to Democrats in this election cycle.

Musa Okwonga, a Berlin-based artist who has written extensively on soccer, told the Washington Post that he saw Nike’s ad with Kaepernick as “the brand claiming to be “progressive” and willing “to change the status quo.”

Although Nike appears to send a specific socially conscious message in the cultural realm, in the political world Nike employees and its PAC contributed $424,000 to the Republican party and its candidates in the 2018 election cycle, compared to only $122,000 to the Democrats — the party typically associated with ‘progressive’ values today.

Nike gave 78 percent of political contributions to Republicans this cycle. With a couple notable exceptions like the 2008 and 2016 election cycles, Nike has a track record of giving much more to Republicans than Democrats in the past decade. During the 2010, 2012 and 2014 election cycles, Nike gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans, with 76 percent, 69 percent and 59 percent of their contributions going to the GOP in each of those cycles respectively. Nearly half of Nike’s political spending has come from individual contributions made by co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny.

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Comparing Nike’s political spending to its competitors, one can see that New Balance employees (primarily their owner James S Davis and family) have given most of their political contributions to conservative outside groups and Republicans. Whereas Adidas and Under Armour have given more of their money to Democrats.

Adidas, Under Armour and their employees, have not given a significant amount in political contributions overall. Since 1996, Adidas, which is German-owned, and its employees have only made $139,000 worth of political contributions with 71 percent of their money going to Democrats and 21 percent of it going to Republicans. In the past decade, Under Armour employees have given a total of $166,000 with 84 percent of that going to Democrats and 15 percent of it going to Republicans.

Nike’s stock fluctuated greatly last past week but this week has been on the rise along with a surge in sales. The Kaepernick ad and Nike’s implicit endorsement of him and his politics have gotten Nike an explosion of attention and interest, mostly positive from those on the Left and plenty of vitriol and protests from the Right. When it comes to their political spending though, Nike is leaning towards the Republican party.



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