Preview

Phil Knight Research Paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
536 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Phil Knight Research Paper
PHIL KNIGHT
Phil Knight is the founder and CEO of the athletic gear company, Nike. He was born in Portland, Oregon, on February 24th, 1938. Knight and Nike helped start a sports business revolution in the 1970s, changing old-fashioned tennis shoes into highly specialized equipment and promoting them as symbols of athletic prowess and success. Nike's success made Knight one of America's wealthiest men.
Celebrity Endorsement Strategy
Known as a taskmaster CEO, Knight is also particular when it comes to matters of promotion. "Hi, I'm Phil Knight and I don't believe in advertising," was the way Nike's ad agency president remembered meeting his new client. Signing up perhaps the greatest basketball player of all time, the former Chicago Bulls' superstar Michael Jordan, was only one of the breakthrough strategies that made Nike-wearers the envy of schoolyard pickup games everywhere. The Nike image has been also linked closely with notable "bad boys" names like McEnroe, Andre Agassi, and Charles Barkley.
Redefining the Shoe market
1.
…show more content…
High interest in sports gave Knight the impetus to study the way track shoes were being made and marketed in the late 1950s. For assistance he consulted his coach, the University of Oregon's famed Bill Bowerman, who himself would become a senior member of the Nike team. Together they determined that American shoes were inferior in style and quality, too heavy, and too easily damaged. The Japanese, on the other hand, were experimenting with new, trimmed-down styles fashioned in lightweight, hardy nylon. Knight wrote his Stanford business-school term paper on the subject, then a few years later got involved personally by visiting Japan and arranging to import new-design running shoes

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Phil Knight went from being an average cross country runner at the University of Oregon to becoming a multi billionaire. It didn't happen overnight or even in a year. Running was Phil Knights passion. But he was tired of his feet hurting from cheap American shoes. So he began testing different shoes while running cross country for the University of Oregon. After he had tested many different pairs of running shoes he decided that he could make a running shoe that was more comfortable and not too expensive.…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Phil was born in Vivian, Louisiana on 24 Apr 1946. He is an entrepreneur who started the company Duck Commander where his sons and friends hand make duck calls and has a net worth of $15 Million to this day. His wife is Kay, his brother Si, and his four boys, Jase, Willie, Jep, and Alan. Phil was never quite satisfied with duck calls that were on the market so he began to experiment with making a duck call that sounded exactly like a duck in a small shed.…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1972 Knight created Nike and paid a college student $35 to design a logo for his new company. Nike became increasingly popular and was at the top of the sneaker game in 1990 when many forms of controversy and some questions of Knights character arose. Nike was able to get through the controversy and remain at the top of athletic footwear and Phil Knight was named the “most powerful” person in sports in 1993. The controversy continued to attract itself to Nike and as the founder and CEO many scrutinized the way Knight handled himself and the company in those situations. Phil Knight is one of the most successful self made billionaires in history but many dispute whether or not he is one of the best business leaders of a…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Phil Brooks Research Paper

    • 3230 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Phil Brooks[4] (born October 26, 1978), better known by his ring name CM Punk, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) on its Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) brand where he is the reigning ECW Champion.…

    • 3230 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the mid 1900’s, there were not very many shoe stores that sold excellent running shoes. Phil Knight and his running coach, Bill Bowerman, changed the way people ran by selling shoes out the back of Knight’s car. Knight wanted people to be able to have a comfortable running shoe for a good price. Knight and Bowerman joined together to create a shoe company called Nike.…

    • 1231 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who Is Philip Knight?

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages

    It is now the world's largest sports and fitness apparel company . Nike’s first ever shoe design include the waffle sole and air cushioning. Phil’s old track coach Bill Bowerman helped think and develop of Nike’s first “waffle” sole which was very popular at the time when Reebok was the main sport and work out shoe. Knight soon also purchased the stop-motion animation company in 2002 and changed the company name to Laika. In 2006 Knight donated $105 million dollars to Stanford which, at the time, was the largest ever individual donation to an American business school.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Philip Knight Nike

    • 1837 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Philip Knight is the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Nike and he currently owns more than 90% of the firm. The company is internationally known for its trademark "swoosh" and its leadership in the athletic apparel industry. Philip H. Knight 's involvement with a sporting goods company is not accidental. He has always loved running, was a miler in college and has participated in marathons since. Knight received a BBA in Accounting at the University of Oregon in 1959, and was an MBA student at Stanford University. The revolution of the sports clothing industry began in 1964, when Knight and his partner, coach Bob Bowerman, began to import Japanese shoes and sell them to local track runners, under the company name Blue Ribbon Sports.…

    • 1837 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    . Knight has an absolutely clear and committed strategy to celebrity athlete endorsement. He describes it as one part of the "three-legged stool" which lies behind Nike's phenomenal growth since the early 1980s, with the other two being product design and advertising.…

    • 512 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shoe Dog is a memoir by the creator of Nike Phil Knight. The books follow this college track athlete, who travels the world and is on a mission to revolutionize the track shoe industry, to a kid trying to run a business with no experience or real guidance to one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. Ultimately the book culminates with an inside look at one of the largest brands on the planet.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nike Company History

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight founded Nike Inc. as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1962. The partners began their relationship at the University of Oregon where Bowerman was Knight’s track and field coach. While attending Stanford University, Knight wrote a paper about breaking the German dominance of the U.S. athletic shoe industry with low-priced Japanese shoes. In an attempt to realize his theory, Knight visited Japan and engineered an agreement with the Onitsuka Tiger company, a manufacturer of quality athletic shoes, to be their sole distributor in the United States.…

    • 593 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Informative Speech

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The foundation of Nike was built through the relationship of Phil Knight, a track and field athlete and his former coach Bill Bowerman of the University of Oregon.…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nike Strategic Analysis

    • 3467 Words
    • 14 Pages

    The company designs and sells shoes for just about every sport, including baseball, volleyball, cheerleading, and wrestling. Nike doesn 't only sell athletic shoes, but a wide variety of sporting goods and clothing; they design, develop, and market high quality active sports apparel, equipment, and accessory products. Their huge lines of products are designed for just about every sport in existence. Their products are made for men, women, and children of all ages. In addition, it operates NIKETOWN shoe and sportswear stores and is opening JORDAN in-store outlets in urban markets. NIKE sells its products to about 19,000 US accounts, in about 140 other countries, and online. Chairman, CEO, and co-founder Phil Knight owns about 36% of the firm.…

    • 3467 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nike was founded in 1968 by two entrepreneurs who used innovation to inspire their athletic footwear design. The inspiration for Nike´s business model came from Bowerman who taught his athletes, Phil Knight among them, to seek competitive advantage everywhere, especially in their bodies, their gear and their passion. Today, Nike has the same core value installed. Knight, a co-founder of Nike and now Chairman of the Board, has witnessed an initial idea from his days as middle distance runners for Coach Bill Bowerman, evolve over the years and constantly grow into a global athletic empire. Knight and Bowerman are credited as some of the world 's most celebrated businessmen. (Heritage, 2006)…

    • 2441 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nike Case Study

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Nike was founded in 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. ("Nike, inc. history," ) Bill Bowerman was a track coach at the University of Oregon and Phil Knight was a student and part of the track team at the University of Oregon. ("Nike, inc. history," ) For years, Bill Bowerman was always looking for ways to give his runners a competitive advantage, whether it be by energy drinks or providing his runners with shoes. He even came up with his own designs for shoes. Phil Knight was a finance major. ("Nike, inc. history," ) Upon completing his degree at Stanford University, Phil Knight sought out companies in Asia to produce running shoes that could compete with the German made running shoes in the United States. ("Nike, inc. history," ) Most companies did not want to hear his idea. Phil Knight’s big break came when the Onitsuka Company offered to make Knight a distributor of their Tiger shoe. Phil Knight accepted their offer and soon contacted his old coach Bill Bowerman, to have the Oregon runners try out the shoes. Bowerman not only accepted Phil Knights offer but he in turn suggested the go into business together. In 1964, Blue Ribbon Sports was formed.…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nike hit the ground running in 1962. Originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports, the company focused on providing high-quality running shoes designed especially for athletes by athletes. Founder Philip Knight believed that high-tech shoes for runners could be manufactured at competitive prices if imported from abroad. The company’s commitment to designing innovative footwear for serious athletes helped it build a cult following among American consumers. By 1980, Nike had become the number-one athletic shoe company in the United States.…

    • 441 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics