On September 3rd, 2018, Colin Kaepernick announced on Twitter his partnership with Nike for their “Just Do It ” campaign. For this specific campaign, Kaepernick and Nike used the slogan “Believe In something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

This has been a controversial move by Nike since Kaepernick has been denounced for his actions of taken a knee during the national anthem. President Trump has previously condemned taking knee during one of his rallies saying “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ’Get that son of a B**** off the field right now. Out! He’s fired.”

Because of Nikes choice to make Kapernick the face of this campaign people have begun to boycott Nike by burning their Nike merchandise. Nike has also seen their stock drop since the announcement but it has slowly climbing back up. Nike’s online sales however has spiked by 31% in wake to the announcement.

Overall Nikes has been heavily criticized but several big names athletes, such as Lebron James and Serena Williams, have shown their support towards this campaign. Lebron commented “I stand with Nike, all day, every day” along with Serena saying that she was “Especially proud to be a part of the Nike family today.”

This news has many people talking about it, including students here at Lincoln. Jose Gonzalez a football player from Lincoln says that “Kaepernick is doing a good thing by sticking to what he believes is right.”