The rise and fall of Nike

What happened to Nike? This business breakdown explores the rise and fall of Nike, how the world's biggest sportswear brand built its dominance, and why a direct-to-consumer strategy helped trigger one of the biggest self-inflicted declines in modern retail. If you've been wondering why is Nike bad now, why Nike quality decline has become part of the conversation, or why Nike lost momentum with customers and retailers, this video breaks it down. Get the 2-minute cheat sheet for this video → https://girdley.com/youtube 👇 SUBSCRIBE for more business breakdowns    / @michael-girdley   ------------------------------------------------------------------ ► Get my weekly letter to business owners: essential insights to run, grow, and stay ahead in your business → https://links.girdley.com/newsletter-yt ► For sponsorships or inquiries please reach out to: [email protected] ► Do you have a hat I should wear in a video? Send it to us: [email protected] ► Free events on all things small business: https://links.girdley.com/lectures-yt ► Deep dives on businesses for sale:    / @acquisitionsanonymouspodcast   ► Follow me on Twitter/X: https://x.com/girdley ------------------------------------------------------------------ This Nike documentary covers how Phil Knight, Bill Bowerman, and the Air Jordan era helped turn Nike from a scrappy upstart into the most powerful athletic brand in the world. For decades, Nike won by understanding sports culture, signing iconic athletes, building powerful product franchises, and making the brand feel bigger than just shoes and apparel. But the rise and fall of Nike is also a story about hubris, channel strategy, and losing touch with how customers actually buy. As Nike pushed harder into direct-to-consumer, cut off key wholesale partners, and reduced its dependence on retailers like Foot Locker, DSW, and specialty running stores, it gave competitors like Hoka and On Running an opening to take over shelf space and mindshare. This business breakdown also looks at why Nike lost market share in running, how the company underestimated the true economics of e-commerce, why performance innovation slowed down, and how direct-to-consumer inventory risk started to work against the company. If you've wondered what happened to Nike, why is Nike bad now, or how a dominant retail brand can destroy over $100 billion in market value through strategic overconfidence, this video walks through the full story. The video also explains how John Donahoe's tenure changed Nike's internal structure, why the company drifted from a product-and-sport mindset toward a spreadsheet mindset, and how the attempt to bypass retailers damaged long-term relationships that had taken decades to build. If you're searching for the rise and fall of Nike, Nike quality decline, or the deeper reasons Nike started slipping with customers, retailers, and serious runners, this video should answer those questions. At its core, this is a case study in brand power, distribution strategy, retail partnerships, and what happens when a company forgets that the customer, not the brand, is ultimately in charge.