Jaylen Brown and Nike have a problem.
The reigning NBA Finals MVP has a history of critical comments toward the sports apparel behemoth and undisputed basketball shoe champion. Whatever Brown’s true problem with Nike is, it came roaring back to the surface in the wake of Team USA Basketball excluding him from the squad for the 2024 Olympics.
Whether by nefarious means or not, Brown came up short of a selection to Team USA in favor of his Celtics teammate, Derrick White. Based on Brown’s reactions to that news last week, the Celtics star seems to believe that he was snubbed, for reasons beyond basketball – and that Nike had something to do with it.
But this wasn’t the beginning of the apparent beef. There’s a little more history to it. So let’s rewind to what appears to be the beginning of the saga…
Jaylen Brown Nike Beef: The Beginning
The origin of Brown’s issues with Nike can be traced back to 2022, when his former teammate Kyrie Irving had become embroiled in a fresh controversy after sharing a link to a 2018 documentary that was widely condemned as antisemitic.
Irving lost his sponsorship with Nike and got a suspension from the Nets over his behavior. Brown would later tell the Boston Globe that he didn’t believe Irving was antisemitic, while also supporting his ex-teammate against the suspension and what he believed were unfair terms for reinstatement.
But when did Brown really factor into all this? Nike chairman Phil Knight later spoke out against Irving’s actions, prompting Brown to fire off an incendiary social media post asking: “Since when did Nike care about ethics?”
On the surface, it was a bold declaration of war against a monolith of sports business. But to many, Brown was saying the quiet part out loud.
Nike is no stranger to high-stakes litigation, often to battle the misuse of its own properties. But they’ve also faced legal action against them – as recently as this past Sunday. A new class-action lawsuit has been announced, alleging “securities fraud or other unlawful business practices,” stemming from accusations that the company misreported its own financial results dating back to June 2022.
They also have a decades-long history of exploiting child labor laws in Asia to manufacture their products in sweatshops. They’ve since worked toward improving worker conditions and treatment. However, a 2020 report in the Washington Post detailed alleged forced labor of Uyghur Muslims in a China factory that is one of Nike’s largest suppliers in the world.
Does Brown have a shoe deal?
Jaylen Brown (Photo by Pool/Getty Images)
Brown had a sponsorship deal with Adidas for the first five seasons of his career, which ran out in 2021. He’s been a sneaker free agent ever since.
That’s notable, even when it comes to Nike alone. The shoe brand represents well over 200 NBA athletes, and recently landed Brown’s teammate, Jayson Tatum. Prominent sports media personality Stephen A. Smith recently drew Brown’s attention when he read a text from a source positing that Brown is “not liked because of his ‘I am better than you’ attitude,” and is “not as marketable as he should be.”
The proof is in the lack of marketing deals for Brown, who later took issue with Smith’s comments. Despite all this, Brown nonetheless has worn Nike shoes in recent years, including the 2024 playoffs. But it’s possible those days are over now…
The Team USA Controversy
Jaylen Brown (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
The Brown-Nike war lay dormant for nearly two years, but exploded back on the scene in recent weeks, after Team USA Basketball did not select Brown to the team ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Brown was quick to, albeit cryptically, voice his displeasure with his exclusion.
His problems became a little more overt later that same day, when he directly called Nike out:
It still didn’t end there … Brown the next day would get even more cryptic, in a post that could be perceived as a bold challenge to Nike:
That’s when everything else – the 2022 tweet, Brown’s political views and outspoken nature, etc. – returned to the forefront. While it remains unclear what exactly Brown is accusing Nike of doing, or what happened in the first place, it’s readily apparent that he believes Nike played a role in keeping him off Team USA. He recently told CLNS Media’s Bobby Manning that he does believe Nike played a role in his exclusion from Team USA, but declined to comment further on the matter.
What is Nike’s relationship with Team USA?
Team USA uniform with Nike logo (Dustin Satloff/Getty Images for the USOPC)
Nike is a major apparel sponsor for multiple Team USA squads at the 2024 Olympics. As you can see in the above photo, the Nike swoosh logo is featured prominently on a number of Team USA uniforms. Nine of the 12 players on the roster either have shoe deals with Nike or wear their shoes, including the Celtics’ Tatum, White, and Jrue Holiday. Stephen Curry (Under Armour), Joel Embiid (Skechers), and Anthony Edwards (Adidas) are the exceptions.
Brown is ostensibly accusing Nike of leveraging their influence to essentially blackball him from Team USA. According to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, Brown is “still reeling over what he perceives as a slight and lack of respect from managing director Grant Hill and USA Basketball.”
Hill attempted to make the case that White was chosen for the last spot on Team USA for pure basketball reasons. Obviously, Brown feels differently about that.
What does the future hold?
Jaylen Brown (Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Brown recently accepted the award for “Best Championship Performance” at the 2024 ESPYs, where he was asked about the recent Nike controversy and declined to address it. He also said, “It feels great to have support, and one day I’ll share my story.”
One fair criticism of Brown in all this, is that he can’t expect to have it both ways. Can he reasonably expect to get a shoe deal with Nike with the way he’s openly criticized the company? Can he be surprised that Nike, and perhaps Team USA, would not be interested in propping him up to express some strong political opinions with the whole world watching? There’s a reason he isn’t as marketable as he could be, despite his elite basketball talent and his accomplishments at the highest level.
But it’s also obvious to Brown, at this point, that Team USA assembled its roster with factors other than just basketball in mind. And that’s a tough look for the team and for the country, to represent itself on the global stage as a team powered by a corporate entity rather than the spirit of competition. They’ll probably cruise to the gold medal, either way, because they’re just that good.
It’ll be fascinating to see if Brown ultimately comes out of this with a new shoe deal, some kind of sponsorship opportunity. He is the Finals MVP, after all, a winner, a competitor worthy of the adulation of basketball fans. It’s just fair to expect that his deal won’t be coming with Nike.
Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.
