Outrage Builds As Nike Continues to Stand By Donald Trump, Refuses to Relocated NYC Niketown Store from Trump Tower
Earlier this week, more than 60,000 members of the California-based Courage Campaign renewed their call for Nike to sever ties with Donald Trump’s bigoted brand and relocate its flagship NYC Niketown store to out of Trump Tower when its lease expires in May of 2017.
Courage Campaign’s renewed push comes after a leaked 2005 Access Hollywood video showed Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women and getting away with it and as 10 women have come forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault since that video made news. Despite previous reporting that Nike’s lease on Trump Tower expires in May of 2017, not including three five-year extensions, Nike spokesperson Greg Rossiter told The Oregonian that Nike has a “multiyear-lease agreement. It does not end in 2017.”
In reaction to Nike’s continued refusal to sever ties with Donald Trump, William Winters, Campaign Director for Courage Campaign issued the following statement:
“Despite numerous reports that Nike’s NYC Niketown lease at Trump Tower is set to expire in May of 2017 – Nike continues to do nothing to disassociate itself from Donald Trump’s dangerous, misogynistic and bigoted brand. For a company that boasts about its dedication to diversity and inclusion, this is unacceptable.
“If Nike has chosen to continue their relationship with Donald Trump, and extended its lease at the Trump Tower location – this is all the more unacceptable. Dozens of national brands – including Macy’s, NBC and ESPN – have taken steps to disassociate themselves from Donald Trump. By failing to do the same, Nike is sending a clear signal that they stand by Trump’s disgusting rhetoric, and sexist, racist, and xenophobic brand.
“Nike needs to immediately clarify the terms of their lease agreement with Trump Tower and take active steps to move their flagship Niketown store from Trump’s building – or face a backlash from the millions of American people that Trump has offended in this election.
“This isn’t rocket science, Nike. Just do it.”
Flagship stores like Niketown are crucial for companies, as their strategic placements in prominent cities around the globe generate foot traffic and high volumes of sales, while increasing the brand’s value and reputation through association with similar, or higher valued brands. Nike currently leases the space for NikeTown from Donald Trump valued at $200m. According to Nike, “diversity and inclusion are key levers in continuing to drive its creativity and innovation” and Courage Campaign argues that Trump’s rhetoric and values are inconsistent with Nike’s brand.
Last year, Macy’s cut ties with Donald Trump’s brand after the Republican frontrunner called Mexican immigrants “rapists,” derided and objectified women by calling them “bimbos,” “fat pigs,” and in one case, “ a young and beautiful piece of ass.” Trump has also said that he would stop all Muslims from entering the US and has encouraged violence against protesters at his events, even going so far as to say that protesters should be carried out on a stretcher and volunteering to pay the legal fees of any supporter who was arrested for assaulting a protester.
Earlier this year, Nike immediately dropped Manny Pacquiao for his abhorrent remarks on same-sex couples. It cut ties with Maria Sharapova right away after she announced that she failed a drug test.
How many large prime location storefronts are there in Manhattan? How easy is it to skip to one?
Myself I think we’re watching people who make their living out of getting people outraged. And thus there’s ever more pressure to find something to be outraged about. A whole 60k online signatures, eh? To drive a $200 million store relocation?
How exactly does one make a living out of getting people outraged? Asking for a friend…
It looks as if Scott Adams might be onto something
If you have the time and resource to get outraged by this then your world must be full of comfort and joy.
I imagine that the majority of the ‘revenue’ involved in things like this are pre-cash intangibles like mindshare and pageviews.
It’s too fucking silly to be outraged about, but the extent that the media is ganging up on trump is kind of scary
Of topic: I see Richard Murphy has today denounced the “dictation of the unelected”.
Typists of the World unite!
How exactly does one make a living out of getting people outraged? Asking for a friend…
Google “Richard Murphy”, “Amanda Marcotte” or “Jessica Valenti”. If you want to move beyond that, just pick a university and look up who is teaching Gender Studies.
It is a sign of increasing desperation.
They are scared shitless that Trump is going to win–and as with Brexit–they just get nastier cos that is all they have.
How exactly does one make a living out of getting people outraged? Asking for a friend…
That’s easy. Apply for a grant from a Soros-funded rabble-rousing outfit.
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants
Only ten sexual innuendo victims over 10+ years?
And he meets, what, 100 bimbos per day.
The guy’s a saint. Well, obviously he’s not, but…
And all this from people who would be campaigning *for* Trump if he’d got the nomination as a D.
I’m moving beyond the Ecksian solution to this sort of thing and edging towards something that would have made Timur say, “steady on, that’s going a bit far.”
What @Diogenes linked to.
Scott’s post on the election over the last year have been very well written.
To (vaguely) answer your question Tim, basically you are tied in for the length of the contract. So you can move for silly reasons, but you’re still going to pay.
If an acceptable new tenant is found to mitigate the damages, then you might be partially released from your obligations.
But yes, this is a boneheaded thing to protest about.
They want Nike to move out when its lease expires – fair enough – they say so – fair enough. They say that Nike’s lease expires when it doesn’t – not fair.
No further comment needed.
We know that these sorts of leases are horrendously complex because the lawyers, on both sides, who draw them up make a serious amount of money. Even if there is a break clause of sorts for 2017 it’s likely to have a number of onerous clauses to trigger and implement it.
Anyway, the jerks who sign up to this sort of boycott campaign will already be boycotting Nike because of all their other SJW crimes e.g. using child labour in 3rd world countries, not paying US NMW in poor countries, being successful, not giving sinecures to SJWs etc.
“Outrage Builds”
Instant soporific.
How exactly does one make a living out of getting people outraged? Asking for a friend…
Corporate shakedowns. Many/most major US companies pay off black/feminist/ecofreak/Elgibitty/whatever groups so they stop coming after them with campaigns like this.
See: Intel Cuts $300m In Jobs, Research, Education And Talent… To Fund Fashionable Feminist Nonsense
It’s 21st century Danegeld.
Even if they wanted to disassociate themselves where could they move to and at what cost? Breaking leases, very expensive. Ending a lease on time? Cheap on the one side, but have to have somewhere to move to at just the right time and in such a way as to minimise or eliminate any disruption in sales.
Is there currently somewhere within a few blocks of their present location that is available to rent from say February 2017 or March 2017 that meets all requirements and won’t cost trade? How likely is it that such a place will become available at the right time and at the right price?
Or the media could simply have the entirely wrong idea about lease date.
Move by March 2017?
LOL.
We’ve reached Peak SJW. Even companies that have supported them in the past are either going out of business, or are finding themselves the targets of SJW Point And Shriek.
The left always eat their own in the end.
This almost sounds like blackmail, or some type of mafia intimidation operation against a company. There will come a point where companies just stop paying lip service. In this particular scenario it makes zero economic sense for Nike to bother listening to this 60,000 group over 100’s of millions of dollars. Nike is a global brand also. This group of 60,000 (who like another commenter said most probably don’t even buy Nike) are irrelevant.
TIS:“It’s 21st century Danegeld.”
Except the Danes honoured their side of the bargain.
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
According to Nike, “diversity and inclusion are key levers in continuing to drive its creativity and innovation”
Serves ’em right, then.
I’m moving beyond the Ecksian solution to this sort of thing and edging towards something that would have made Timur say, “steady on, that’s going a bit far.”
hehehehe
Dear Mr Worstall
$200 million to comfort 60,000? A paltry $3,333.33 each: worth every cent of somebody else’s money.
DP
It shows the increasing intolerance of a formerly liberal society. In the old days we had political disagreements but they stopped once we got on with the rest of our lives.
The Hard Left thinks the personal is political. They are on 24 hours a day. This is just an extension of the Brendan Eich disaster. Trump is evil so Nike must be forced to disengage. Taylor Swift must be forced to denounce Trump. It is a little mini-Cultural Revolution.
As I keep saying, liberal society is dead. Either they do this to us or we do it to them. There is no third option.
“How exactly does one make a living out of getting people outraged? Asking for a friend…”
Corporate pay-offs:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/02/09/twitter-unveils-new-trust-and-safety-council-featuring-feminist-frequency/