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Sports apparel giant Nike has been able to keep their strong market share in the industry thanks to their incredible marketing team. Because of their competitive advantage in marketing, they’re not going to give any free publicity to their competitors any time soon.
As the official apparel sponsor for the United States olympic team, Nike is trying to get as much brand exposure as possible with the country’s athletes and teams. Obviously, the biggest exposure for Nike will be with the country’s basketball team, with the company sponsoring the majority of the team’s athletes.
However, there are a few basketball players that are sponsored by other companies. Harrison Barnes and Kyle Lowry are signed with Adidas, while Klay Thompson is signed with Anta, a Chinese sportswear company.
Oddly enough, the team photo for USA basketball seems to be hiding the feet or Barnes, Lowry and Thompson, while prominently featuring Nike’s own sneakers on the rest of the athletes. You can see the photo courtesy of Nike Basketball’s Twitter account below.
Oh say can you see, America.
We are one team. #UNITE pic.twitter.com/wEJUFmPpI2— Nike Basketball (@nikebasketball) July 18, 2016
Yeah, that’s not intentional or anything.
Although this has made plenty of waves on social media, it’s actually not the first time that Nike has intentionally hid athletes shoes. In 2008, they used Team USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski to hide Dwight Howard’s Adidas kicks, and in 2012 they hid Kevin Love’s sneakers while displaying every other athlete’s.
It might bother some people that Nike is doing this, but as the official apparel sponsor for Team USA, they have every right to do so.
