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  • Hacker News
  • I feel like Nike’s biggest fumble was not advertising the Invincibles more. It seemed they had some evidence the PEBAX foam could reduce injury in base mileage, which is the number one thing many/most runners spend the most time on. So why not make sure everybody knows this? It seems weird. If you have a lot of athletes who need conditioning and don’t want to get injured, why not advertise the crap out of the injury prevention shoes?
    by bionhoward
  • don’t buy stuff from people who hate you.

    https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/nikes-end-of-men

    by dijit
  • It's so annoying that more than half of the videos on there show up as "private" to users from my country.
    by randunel
  • Great link.
    by kgwgk
  • Sneakerbots killed it for everyone.

    Priced out the demand IMO too early.

    But also, people only have 2 feet.

    by epsteingpt
  • not sneakebots but competition coupled with failure of nike to modernize past airjordan brand. nike was riding hiding when you alternatives were reebok and new balance. now there are a lot more brands and they leave nike in the dust. my 13-year old athlete

    - does not know who “jordan” is

    - called me a boomer when I suggested to buy her nike shoes I liked for the upcoming season

    by bdangubic
  • > But also, people only have 2 feet.

    There's more to athletic wear than shoes. Competition like Lululemon, Vuori, Athleta, etc. suggest to me that Nike didn't expand their business broadly enough.

    by andsoitis
  • > Sneakerbots killed it for everyone

    Ultimately I think artificial scarcity/limited production for products offered online is a futile and erroneous venture. The bots exist because the product is valuable. The product is valuable because it's artificially limited.

    by ronsor
  • Beyond the stock market gambling aspect, what actually happened here?

    > revenue down 2%

    That means almost nothing, right? Some fluctuation must be expected. The Stock also looks like it really benefited from a Corona boost that is now cooling off.

    Can someone with more insight explain why everyone is screaming?

    by rf15
  • Without knowing any of the specifics of nike, investors are chasing money losing AI with promises of 100000x growth in the next five minutes, not a manufacturer of physical products that perhaps actually make a profit every year.
    by Unit327
  • No one is screaming. Nike’s market cap is just being right-sized to reflect the lack of moat in the clothing/shoe business. Personally, Nike’s $54B vs Adidas’ $28B is still too high.
    by lotsofpulp

  •     > Beyond the stock market gambling aspect
    First, the United States' stock markets (NYSE + NASDAQ) are not gambling. An index-tracking portfolio has never lost money over a 20 year time frame for the last 125 years.

    Google tells me:

        > Nike Annual Revenue Breakdown
    > Fiscal Year 2026: $46.40 billion (+0.19% YoY)
    > Fiscal Year 2025: $46.31 billion (-9.84% YoY)
    > Fiscal Year 2024: $51.36 billion (+0.28% YoY)
    Many Wall Street analysts will tell you that a stock price is the value of its future earnings growth. Nike has had three terrible years. As a result, their stock is in the toilet.
    by throwaway2037
  • Lots of bad marketing moves by Nike - wonder which middle management genius' idea it was to put that big ass poster right on the facade of a historic building, if anyone remembers.

    And their manufacturing quality has gone down the drain. Their sneakers fall apart in months while German brand sneakers still manage to retain their quality.

    by fakedang
  • I buy cheap running shoes. I replace them when they wear through the sole. The shoe brands means absolutely nothing to me.
    by WalterBright
  • Not going to argue with you about the quality of German brand sneakers, I wear Adidas myself, but Nike still has several models that score well enough on runrepeat.com.
    by bushwart
  • I used to get all my running shoes from Nike, the Pegasus line which was always their basic running shoe that was very good overall. These days, I can get what is basically the same shoe from Decathlon for 1/5th the price of last year's Pegasus.

    Running shoe tech is not some kind of secret thing. Any shoe manufacturer can buy a pair of any other shoes and cut it open and copy it. The only shoes that have anything special in them are the ones with the carbon fiber spring plate, and those are highly specialized and only last for a few races anyway, not for me as a casual runner in his 40s.

    by zhivota
  • Same. I used to run a Pegasus pair to the ground and get a new one (ideally previous year's) without even thinking about it. They were usually cheaper than the competition and worked fine for me so why not. At some point they got just as expensive as a Hoka pair so I tried one and I'm not coming back. I'll try the Decathlon next time :) any particular model you would recommend?
    by ciropantera
  • As a trail runner it’s been weird to watch. Nike ACG has been putting out some seriously good, cutting edge equipment. Ultrafly is a great shoe, as is the Pegasus trail for road-to-trail they’ve also got some neat cooling tech that I don’t have personal experience with.

    Project Oregon left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouth. It feels like right when they recovered their image with runners they are losing mass appeal.

    by sh-run
  • I think they should continue pushing ACG as a standalone apparal brand. they have good designs and could compete with The North Face and Patagonia in the streetwear/outdoor market
    by jahller
  • The latest Vomero lineup, the Plus specifically was a MASSIVE hit in the road running community over the last year. Almost every member of my 100 person run club has a pair, some have 5+.
    by notesinthefield
  • Runners are not even like 20-30% of the buyers of such shoes I'd wager. Most people buying a cushioned On, Hoka, or Nike running shoe are just looking for a shoe that's comfortable and versatile
    by aprilthird2021
  • Two things really undead Nike: DTC and the simplification of their product line. But where did those ideas come from? Mckinsey [1].

    Does anything good ever come out of management consulting? It just seems to be a scam whenever I hear about. It's to provide cover for CEOs where the consultants can get blamed when things inevitably go sour. Then you fire them and hire new consultants. It's only when the disaster is so massive that the CEO gets fired (as was the case here). And likewise, McKinsey (or whoever) just say the company failed to execute properly or they were already doomed so they gave them the best chance to succeed or whatever self-absolution they choose on any given day.

    Producing things has been replaced with financial chicanery to boost short term profits in a way that's inevitably fatal to the company. Few developed economies actually produce anything anymore and we have China that produces 30-40% of the world's stuff at this point.

    [1]: https://www.toddherman.com/leadership/how-data-drove-nike-in...

    by jmyeet
  • Executives probably got more money from it somehow. Whether McKinsey executives, Nike executives or both.
    by mitxela
  • This is the value of consulting. If it works, you get to claim the win. If it fails, you blame the consultant.
    by wvanbergen
  • Last month, I bought two pairs of sneakers: one was a full leather design made in Spain, the other was a leather/cloth combination (Italian design, I'm not sure where they are made). Both are comfortable, seem to be of very good quality and look premium. The price of these two pairs together was less then one Nike pair made of synthetic materials.

    This was in Novi Sad, Serbia. I don't know what's going on around the world, but if this anecdote is of any indication, Nike is simply too expensive for the (lack of) quality they have.

    by branko_d
  • Yes, this.

    My sister took me to the employee store, and even at 50% off the price/quality is a rip off.

    by jeffrallen
  • +1 for poor quality. New Nikes seem to be blatantly made to wear out in a short few years. I got a pair of Air Max 270 in mid 2021. By 2025, the outer sole was so worn off that the air-sole was exposed to the ground while walking. That happened with very light use: COVID + WfH + not used when away + not used at sports + not my only pair of shoes.

    I still buy Nike, but I go for classic models like Air Force, or Air 180, which are a bit more rugged.

    by m000
  • This sounds like it might have something to do with taxes? In Bulgaria all sports stores carry Nikes and the lower end ones are like 60 euros. Offbrand design replicas are like 40 or 50, no way you get such a deal f, especially for natural materials
    by nomorewords
  • Leather shoes are still disposable if you can't unstitch the sole. You need a Goodyear welted shoe if you want one that will last decades.
    by globular-toast
  • > one was a full leather design made in Spain

    Would you care to share the brand name, for posterity?

    by fransje26