NFL was hit on the blind side by Nike ad
N IKE is treating the NFL like a defenseless receiver being smashed by an intimidating free safety. Sources have told The Post the league was caught “off guard” by Nike’s decision to use Colin Kaepernick in its latest ad campaign. Executives who have worked for and collaborated with the NFL said the league has to be livid.
Kaepernick’s new Nike commercial, which was released Wednesday, will be a part of NBC’s Thursday night NFL season opener between the Falcons and Eagles, according to ESPN. And there is nothing the NFL can do.
The NFL does have an approval process for its advertising, but an NFL source said the Kaepernick ad would not violate any policy.
Kaepernick, who has gone unsigned after becoming a free agent following the 2016 season, is suing the NFL because he feels he has been blackballed for sitting and then kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
TV and league executives who have been involved with the NFL for years imagine that the league is “pissed,” to use one official’s term, about how Nike has magnified the anthem debate.
The league is not used to partners defying it — especially in such an in-your-face way.
But as evidenced by its statement saying “the social-justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action,” the NFL is boxed in by Nike, which has made the league look small.
“They will be above it, like they were with the Will Smith movie,” said a former top TV executive, who has dealt extensively with the NFL for years, referring to the movie “Concussion,” which emphasized the dangers of the sport. “But behind the scenes, they will be pissed.”
In 2003, the NFL forced one of its TV partners, ESPN, to cancel the program, “Playmakers,” because it felt it showed the league in a bad light.
But that was a fictional TV series, while this is a real-life story that has caught the attention of President Trump and has hovered over the league for years. While the NFL’s long-term sponsorship deal with Nike will put a swoosh on every player’s uniform, the company has aligned itself with someone suing the NFL.
“It is probably akin to ‘Playmakers’ and ESPN back in the day,” a former NFL executive said. “The difference is they can’t do anything about it, but they can’t be happy about it.”