brands Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Nike President Resigns Amid Vague Investigation Into "Inappropriate Workplace Behavior"<em></em>
The Wall Street Journal’s Sara Germano reported last night that Nike president Trevor Edwards had resigned after the company received complaints about “inappropriate workplace behavior.” What behavior? The Journal’s report does not specify what the complaints contained or who they were about, only t...
<em></em>Clippers Empower Women Everywhere By Selling Ad Space To Dating App<em></em><em></em>
The Clippers have partnered with the dating app Bumble to create the latest advertisement to grace NBA jerseys. But lest you think this ad for the dating app known for requiring women to make the first move is, uh, just an ad for the dating app known for requiring women to make the first move—don’t ...
Source: ESPN.com Altered A Headline And Buried Stories To Placate Advertisers
ESPN.com altered the published headline of one story and deleted Twitter and Facebook posts about it, and halted the promotion of another story, all under pressure from advertising partners, according to an ESPN source and internal emails viewed by Deadspin....
What I Learned At Phil Knight's Big Basketball Birthday Party
PORTLAND, Ore.—Here is a story from Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike, J.B. Strasser and Laurie Becklund’s 1993 book about about the company’s early days. In 1975, Nelson Farris, Nike’s first employee—he still works there, “Chief Storyteller” or some such thing—went to a women’s track meet to s...
What The Hell Is The Hopewell Fund?
The NFL PR playbook is so obvious at this point that it’s shocking the league’s executives are still impressed by the idea: When people get upset, throw money at the problem. ...
Look At This Goddamn Email
Here’s an email I just got, from a Google employee, beneath the subject line: “Kevin Durant just leaked YouTube news ;)”...
Pizza Has Opinions On NFL Player Protests, Nazis
If you were, for some reason, left hungering for more after the latest installment of the NFL’s unbelievably dumb pizza drama—remember Papa John claiming that revenue was down due to football players protesting during the national anthem, followed by speculation that he’d been put up to it by none o...
Nike Promises To Fix Their Shitty NBA Jerseys
This is the first of Nike’s eight-year, $1 billion apparel deal with the NBA. Which massive corporation is responsible for making the league’s jerseys is usually of very little concern to anyone, but Nike has caught everyone’s attention in a bad way by making jerseys that won’t stop ripping....
ESPN Enters Incomprehensible Partnership With Incomprehensible Media Company
Big news in the world of digital media today, as Ad Age has a scoop about ESPN partnering with Cycle, a “media network” that “evolved from an internal influencer management division at Laundry Service to a sibling content company last year.”...
This Is All Bullshit
The NFL loves nothing more than a hollow branding opportunity. Just look at the self-satisfaction on the face of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones when he knelt, uselessly, with his team before the performance of last night’s national anthem. That’s the look of a man who knows he’s taken something that has ...
NFL Brands Support Italy While Trying To Support Mexico
To nobody’s surprise, the first response two NFL teams had to a devastating natural disaster was, “How can we use this tragedy to advance our brand?” For the Tennessee Titans and the Denver Broncos, after this week’s earthquake in Mexico City (donate here), that meant defacing the Mexican flag by sl...
Under Armour Is Still Struggling
Until very recently, Under Armour was a surging company that had doubled its revenues in a few short years and was actively endorsing the MVPs of the NFL, NBA, and National League. However, in January, company stock plunged after CEO Kevin Plank admitted that revenue was slowing and that the company...
Maria Sharapova Made An Hour-Long Commercial And It Sucked
Maria Sharapova’s management agency made a 55-minute, highly-produced, glorified advertisement that they’re calling a documentary about her 15-month suspension from tennis after failing a drug test at the 2016 Australian Open. The movie has all the trimmings of a documentary—tight shots of Sharapova...
Chip Brand's Automated Twitter Promotion Spirals Out Of Control
Fancy a crisp? How about a bag of Walkers, the Frito-Lay-owned brand that broadcasted videos of Gary Lineker holding framed portraits of serial killers and convicted pedophiles? Who’s hungry?...
How Many Nuggets Does Your Soul Cost?
If you’ve been on the internet this month, you’ve definitely been exposed to the most successful ad in the history of Twitter. Millions of people and countless media outlets have propagated the heartwarming story of a giant corporation buying a priceless amount of advertising for close to free. If ...
Panels Are Shit
South by Southwest is going on in Austin this week and if you’ve ever been to that thing, you know that it started out as a music festival before BIG LANYARD got its paws on it and turned it into an event where brands jizz all over themselves and do NOT keep Austin weird. Since the festival’s incep...
Steph Curry Calls Trump An Ass, Voices Opposition To Under Armour CEO's Pro-Trump Takes
Under Armour’s been in the news a lot lately, first for a huge one-day drop in the value of the company and yesterday for CEO Kevin Plank’s remarks that Donald Trump’s presidency would be a “real asset” for the country. Plank engaged in some jargon-heavy triage (subject: UNDER ARMOUR STATEMENT - PRO...
Under Armour Had A Really Bad Day<em></em>
Under Armour, the company behind those heinous Steph Curry shoes, was the fastest growing sportswear company in the country until very recently. They passed Adidas two years ago to become the second-largest manufacturer in the industry (Adidas recently overtook them), and at one point an MVP in each...
You Don't Have To Write This Shit If They're Not Paying You To
Over at Sports Illustrated, you can read an article about Tom Brady’s new line of sleepwear for A Company That Makes Stretchy Workout Stuff. The article contains the following lines:...