Nike snipes back at UniWatch

Special Interest Areas footwear & softgoods
1

Do you like the University of Oregon’s football uniforms?

  • Yes
  • NO

0 voters

I have been a fan of the ESPN.com columnist Paul Lukas for a long time. He writes a column on Page 2 of ESPN.com called UniWatch. He also features a blog at www.uniwatchblog.com that is updated every day with uniform related news and images. As a product developer who is big on sports, Paul’s columns combine two of my biggest passions, and I can’t get enough.

Ever since I started reading UniWatch, it seemed that Paul Lukas had a certain disdain for Nike. As he puts it,

“I appreciate that lots of extremely talented people work at Nike and Reebok, that they’ve done some genuinely innovative things, and that they create some excellent products. My beef with them isn’t even so much about their bad designs but rather that those bad designs are part of a larger branding approach, which to my mind is antithetical to how the fan/team relationship should work.”

Not only does he poke fun at them on a seemingly daily basis, but he has even designed a counter on the side of his blog site that counts the number of times someone from Nike views his site. This counter remains at 0 to remind his viewers that could care less what Nike thinks of his site.

The major source of his criticism is the jersey testing laboratory that is the University of Oregon football uniforms.

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Well, it seems that someone at Nike has finally sniped back. A nike employee annonimously posted on his blog site to take shots at Paul Lukas. The UniWatch webmaster traced these fulgar comments back to an IP address from the nike office in Beaverton.

http://www.uniwatchblog.com/2006/09/17/sunday-open-thread-and-nike-roundup/#comments

Interesting that we have only just now finished the third weekend of college football and this uni argument seems to be reaching a fever pitch, no doubt elevated by Oregon’s win over Oklahoma.

Curious if there is going to be a response from Nike to settle things down a bit. I know that there are several Nike employees who visit this site (sorry to single you out Yo), so I was curious if anyone knew anything, any behind the scenes information? Is the Oregon uni designer finally hearing about all the trash talking? Is he/she trying to defend the design, or is it simply a Oregon fan and Nike employee defending their team?

Also, let me know what you all think, do you like the Oregon uniforms or not?

2

I didn’t really get much feedback from the initial post, but that’s ok, I won’t take it too personally. Sure, I cried myslef to sleep for the first few nights, but I think I am over it now.

Anyway, I thought I might add a little update for anyone interested.

It seems that Oregon will be wearing their much anticipated neon yellow helmet, complete with custom metallic flame detailing in the upcoming Las Vegas Bowl.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/12/15/c1.sp.vegasnotes.1215.p1.php?section=oregonfb

I was just curious what thoughts you may have on this new direction.

I can always appreciate Nike’s ability to take athletic apparel and accessories in a new direction and often unchartered territory, but I am not so sure of this helmet concept for the college football scene. When I think college football, I think of the timeless uniforms of Michigan, Notre Dame or Penn State. A flame helmet just reminds me so much of the defunck XFL or even some lame Arena League uniform. Thoughts?

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Full uniform for the Las Vegas Bowl

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I can’t help but gringe.

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I personally don’t see anything offensive in the aesthetic although i have no emotional or functional connection with American Football. Being English we play real football :smiley:

What do the athletes wearing it think? maybe it is really technical piece of kit which performs well in a functional sense.

From what I understand this is college level sport

Best

Greg

5

I personally like the helmets… even the flames. I think it fits well with the Oregon team being Nike’s testing ground for football unies. I love the fact that the helmet flames have nothing to do with a duck. Yeah, it’s a little bit whacky (no I didn’t mean quacky) but so have been the uniforms altogether. I mean that in a good way too. And that doesn’t mean I don’t like the never-changing look of Michigan, Penn State, etc. I love those uniforms too. It’s all a part of these teams respective identities. But as I see it, it’s a complete side-story to the games themselves. I thank Nike for having the gumption to mix a little fashion envelope-pushing with technological advancement. And I thank U of O for having the cajones to wear the stuff.