The release Saturday of the latest edition of Nike's Air Force 1 required "Houston police officers to be called to help control crowds that pressed against store doors to buy the popular footwear," according to Melanie Markley of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE. A local Foot Locker was scheduled to open at 10:00am CT but "remained closed until after 11:30, when police arrived to help control the crowd." Several customers complained that "the store was out of shoes because employees had been seen selling" the $80 per-pair-items "out the back door for $200 before the gates were lifted." Media were not allowed inside the Foot Locker, and "employees refused to respond to the allegations." National Foot Locker spokesperson Lori Anne Kober said, "We will definitely look into this thoroughly." Phillip Bailey, manager of the Footaction USA store in the same Houston mall, said that his store sold 30 adult-sized pairs of the shoes within 10 minutes of opening the doors at 9:00am CT (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 12/8). Marc Friedman, who works at a MN footwear retail outlet, said, "It used to be an urban thing, but 
now we get people from (Minneapolis suburbs) Edina and Hopkins. We just had a bunch of Champlin Park (football) players come in, and each bought a pair of Air Force 1s." In St. Paul, Hannah Allam notes rapper Nelly has a song entitled "Air Force Ones." Nike "did not pay Nelly for the song, [and] declined to release sales figures or speculate on the record's impact on revenue" (PIONEER PRESS, 12/9).
MORE FROM NIKE: Last week at the Int'l Business Seminar at UT St. Univ., Nike VP/Global Strategic Planning Curtis Roberts, mentioning soccer and wrestling, said, "We invest in businesses that do not make money, and we do that specifically because we feel they are good for the brand." Roberts "also acknowledged that Nike has veered away from entering certain markets — including sports drinks, health clubs, snowboards and nutrition bars — because they had some degree of risk" to the brand (Brice Wallace, DESERET NEWS, 12/6)....Nike will become the co-brand partner of Chinese media and Internet service SINA.com's sports channel under a new marketing deal. The companies will "co-develop and market the sports channel, which will be renamed Nike-SINA Sports Channel" (DOW JONES NEWSWIRES, 12/6).
AGENCY SWITCH: WPP-owned Mediaedge:cia has acquired the U.K. and French media planning and buying accounts for Reebok, replacing Media Planning Group in France and Initiative Media in the U.K. Mediaedge:cia already handles the company's media in Germany, Italy and Spain (FT, 12/6).
