The Nike swoosh looms large over the footwear industry. This uncontested giant of the field has built itself up through high-profile endorsements, sleek designs, and PR campaigns successful enough to etch its way into pop-culture history. But the brand of Lebron James, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan didn't come from nowhere. To understand Nike (NKE) - Get Report requires understanding a story that began with a self-described average track runner coming out of college and a coach obsessed with the connection between speed and design.

—Jack Meyer, History of Nike

Blue Ribbon Sports

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The story of Nike begins with the story of Blue Ribbon Sports back in 1964. Around that time, Phil Knight had just gone through University of Oregon followed by a stint at Stanford for his MBA, leaving him with two crucial experiences that set the trajectory of his future.

At University of Oregon, he ran for the school's track and field team, putting him into contact with their coach, Bill Bowerman . Aside from an intensely competitive ethos, Bowerman displayed a fascination with optimizing his runners' shoes, constantly tinkering with different models after learning from a local cobbler.

According to Nike, Knight was the first student to try one of Bowerman's shoes. Seeing him as a safely-unimportant runner to test his shoes on, Bowerman offered to take one of his shoes and fix them up with his custom design. Knight accepted the offer, and, supposedly, the shoes worked so well that his teammate Otis Davis took them and ended up using them to win gold in the 400-meter dash in the 1960 Olympics. Otis Davis insists to this day that Bowerman made the shoes for him.

After the University of Oregon, Knight went through Stanford's MBA program, during which he wrote a paper theorizing that the production of running shoes should move from its current center in Germany to Japan, where labor was cheaper.

Knight got the chance to put this theory to the test with a trip to Japan shortly after his 1962 graduation. He struck a deal with a group of Japanese businessmen to export the country's popular Tiger shoes into the U.S.

Coach Bowerman, who long believed that German shoes, though the best on the market, weren't anything too special to be replicated or even improved on, supported Knight's venture, entering into a 50-50 business deal for ownership of their new company, Blue Ribbon Sports, established in Eugene, Oregon, on Jan. 25, 1964.

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After founding Blue Ribbon Sports, Knight tested the waters for his imported shoes, initially selling them out of his car when he came back to the States. It quickly became clear that a demand existed for these cheaper but still high-quality alternatives to the Adidas (ADDYY) and Pumas (PUMSY) that dominated the market.

In 1965, the ever-inventive Bowerman proposed a new shoe design to the Tiger shoe company, one that sought to provide the right support for runners with a cushioned innersole, soft sponge rubber in the forefoot and top of the heel, hard sponge rubber in the middle of the heel, and a firm rubber outsole.

This design would turn out to be both a major success and source of conflict between Blue Ribbon and its Japanese supplier. Dubbed the Tiger Cortez, the shoe dropped in 1967 and became an instant hit for its comfortable, sturdy, and stylish design.

Around the time of its success, though, relations soured between Blue Ribbon and Tiger. Knight claims that the Japanese company was seeking a way out of its exclusivity deal with Blue Ribbon and sought to sink the company. Tiger claims to have discovered Blue Ribbon Sports selling their own version of the Tiger Cortez under a new line of shoes they called "Nike."

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Either way, the two formally split in 1971 with a lawsuit from Tiger following. A judge eventually settled that both companies could sell their own versions of the model, leading to the only sneaker to become a best-selling model for two different shoe companies as the Nike Cortez and the Tiger Corsair (now sold by Tiger's modern incarnation, Asics).

Following the split with Tiger, Blue Ribbon Sports fully rebranded itself as Nike. Phil Knight initially wanted to call the company "Dimension 6," but Jeff Johnson, thankfully, got the inspiration for Nike after seeing the Greek goddess of victory's name in a dream. Before this though, the new brand needed its own logo.

They reached out to a design student at the nearby Portland State University, Carolyn Davis, to provide sketches. Phil Knight reluctantly settled on a swoosh design, reportedly saying, "Well, I don't love it, but maybe it will grow on me." Davis charged $2/hour and received a total of $35 for the logo. In 1983 Phil Knight, apparently having come around to the logo, held a party for Davidson and awarded her 500 shares of stock, speculated to be worth roughly $1 million today.

After coming into existence proper on May 30, 1971, Nike, Inc. continued the success of Blue Ribbon Sports, helped first by the success of the Tiger Cortez and then by Bowerman's innovative "Waffle" sole design. While thinking over breakfast on a way to give running shoes more traction, the coach saw the grooves in the waffle his wife made him and wondered what it would look inverted. Not one to pass on an idea, Bowerman poured melted urethane into his waffle iron. Unfortunately, he forgot to add any anti-stick agent onto the iron and it glued shut. But nevertheless, the idea had taken root, and with the help of another waffle iron and presumably a good spray, he designed his ideal sole and the iconic "Waffle Trainer" was born.

After IPO

This shoe was a major success for Nike, the first of many to come as the company maintained a strong and steady growth through its early days, culminating in its 1980 IPO, which immediately made Phil Knight a millionaire with shares worth $178 million.

Since then, the company has only continued to grow, helped on in part by a series of clever ad campaigns, most famously the 1988 "Just Do It" ad campaign (apparently inspired by the last words of American murderer Gary Gilmore before the firing squad, "Let's do it.")

The company's other greatest asset has been its celebrity endorsements. They struck big signing athletes like Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James in the early stages of their career.

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By far the most lucrative endorsement Nike has ever had, both for the company and its sponsor, has been with Michael Jordan. Spotting potential, Nike tried to swoop in for an endorsement from Jordan before the start of his first season with the pros in 1984. Despite having never worn a pair of Nikes before and harboring hope for a deal with Adidas, Jordan ended up signing on with Nike after a meeting in which they promised the soon-to-be star $500,000 a year for five years, two die cast Mercedes cars, and shoes customized to his specific requests.

The deal proved a smash hit for Nike, with Jordan quickly rising to super stardom and his shoe line, Air Jordans, hitting the market to make over $100 million in revenue by the end of 1985. Air Jordans continue to be a cash cow for Nike. Despite some recent declines in sales, the brand still nets the company a staggering $2.8 billion in sales for 2018. Jordan continues to make roughly $100 million a year in Nike royalties alone.