News; The Story of Nike Air Force 1 Part1

Nike was founded by coach Bill Bowerman and track athlete Philip Knight of the University of Oregon in January 1964. Initially Nike was known as Blue Ribbon Sports. In Greek mythology Nike means Goddess of Victory. When Nike started its operations, it acted as a distributor for Onitsuka Tiger (Japanese Shoe Maker).



Nike (Blue Ribbon Sports) opened its first retail store in 1966 which was located in Santa Monica, California. Later in 1971, Philip Knight realized the importance of design ideas and for this he approached Davidson who created the logo which is globally known as Swoosh. This was first used in the running shoes at the US Track & Field Olympic Trials (Oregon – Eugene).



Nike was first introduced as a football shoe in 1971. Later in 1978 Nike Inc. emerged and was endorsed by the professional athlete Ilie Nastase. In 1980, Nike Inc went public after it had established nearly 50% of the market share in USA athletic shoe market. In 1982 Nike ran its 1st national commercial on television.




With offices located in 45 countries, Nike has bonded with more than 700 shops world wide. It has its factories located in Asia – Pakistan, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and India.



Nike today manufacturers a wide array of sports equipment and accessories for both men and women. Track running shoes were their first products and today Nike's portfolio includes baselayers, shoes, shorts, jerseys, etc for sports such as cricket, tennis, basketball, football, ice hockey, cycling, wrestling, baseball, cheerleading, golf etc. A few examples are skateboarding Nike NYX and Nike SB shoes, Air Zoom Yoker for cricket and Air Jordan XX3 for basketball.

Nike has recently joined with Apple Inc to manufacture its product called Nike +. This shoe is used to monitor the performance of a runner through a radio device which is implanted in the shoe. This in turn is linked to the iPod (Nano).