Univ. of OK (OU) head football coach John Blake
receives $150,000 a year from Nike for outfitting his team
in Nike apparel, according to Trammell & Ellis of the DAILY
OKLAHOMAN. In addition to the $150,000 a year, Nike lets
Blake and his assistants select a combined $25,000 a year in
free merchandise for their "personal use." By contrast,
Nike "doesn't pay" OK State Univ. head football coach Bob
Simmons, though it lets him select $3,000 a year in free
merchandise, while his assistants each get $750 in personal
goods. Trammell & Ellis reported that Nike "gets more than
just advertising" from its OU deal, as Blake's contract
calls for him to annually provide Nike with four free
regular season tickets for all home games, 10 tickets to the
OU-Texas game, "a block of 50 tickets to one mutually
acceptable home game and six adjacent tickets to any post-
season bowl game" (DAILY OKLAHOMAN, 9/20).
MORE NIKE NEWS: Nike will spend $30-50M in the U.S.
from January to May to introduce Alpha, its new swooshless
sub-brand "marking Nike's most advanced products." Goodby,
Silverstein & Partners, S.F., will break Alpha in the U.S.
and is also creating a "major women's fitness campaign to
run during the same time." Nike said that next month it
will cut $50-60M from its FY '99 global marketing budget (AD
AGE, 9/21)....Nike's subcontracted factories "have been
forced to lay off about" 2,700 workers in Vietnam after
"declining orders" (DOW JONES NEWS SERVICE, 9/22).
