Nike Spot Features Storied High School Football Programs

Nike Focusing On High School Football In “I Promise” Spot

The football team of St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Ft. Lauderdale, along with coach and AD George Smith, are “featured in a Nike advertisement that began airing in movie theatres nationally” last week, according to Brousseau & Talalay of the Ft. Lauderdale SUN-SENTINEL. The ad also can be seen at Nikegridiron.com. The ad, “I Promise,” via Wieden & Kennedy, “includes images of the school’s football field, scoreboard and gym, interspersed with scenes from other schools” in California, Texas and Pennsylvania. Smith said his school received a $1,000 “shoot fee.” The spot’s co-Creative Dir Mike Byrne said, “The idea was to get people ready for football season, to go in and visually grab the icons of high school football, the signs in the locker room, the empty stadium seats, the empty field and just show them the environment they’re going to be in all of August and most of the fall” (Ft. Lauderdale SUN-SENTINEL, 7/2).

ARE THOSE REAL? In N.Y., C.J. Sullivan reported N.Y. police arrested “four men driving a truck loaded with counterfeit Nike sneakers” Friday night, and also uncovered the Queens warehouse where they stored $5M worth of counterfeit shoes. NYPD Capt. Chris Monahan said, “Nike said this is the biggest counterfeit seizure of their goods in North American history” (C.J. Sullivan, N.Y. POST, 7/2).