Stanford and the Farm Team

If the Farm Team is ever put to rest, then we'll never see that 3:31......HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I don't think it is funny, I think that it is deceptive. I feel sorry for the athletes as they have sold their soles to be part of this scam. I honestly believe that most of the athletes don't even realize that they are being used, and they probably won't for another 10 years when they haven't reached any of their goals.

If adidas came to sponser Stanford, wouldn't they do whatever Nike does (keep the Farm Team) in order to maintain their contract with Stanford? I believe your point should be that the Farm Team is a way for ______ (enter shoe company) to keep it's contract with Stanford.

Either way, I rather believe Nike is probably getting more advertising out of their minimal investment in the Farm Team to justify it's existence independent of their deal with Stanford.

It is very hard for me to visualize a situation in which the expense of the Nike Farm Team is even close to the benefits to Nike of keeping the Stanford all-sports account. Or one in which the Nike Farm Team is a "swing factor" to landing the account.

Maybe I'm wrong -- maybe the US faked the moon landings in the 1960s and 1970s, and a Stanford T&F alumnus knew it, and the Nike Farm Team is a an extortion reward -- paid on the surface by Nike for "cover" b/c the funds are siphoned from the NSA's offshore bank accounts, which has a mysterious line in their budget amounting to millions of dollars for Nike uniforms for their teams in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, even thouigh they don't show up in any JP Morgan Chase CC results. That's more plausible than the s--t I'm seeing here.

Joe is right, the Nike people went to Stanford and there are some feelings there. If the decisions for the Farm Team were made on a financial basis, there would be no team.

Thank God for Phil Knight and Jeff Johnson.

"The Nike People" that went to Stanford was Phil Knight, who earned his MBA there. As you can see with University of Oregon, alumni ties are very important to leadership at Nike.

And in reality, neither the Farm Team or Stanford sponsorships amount to any real financial impact (either in cash and product to the institutions or in profits generated from the sponsorships) for Nike. Lets face it, hardly anyone buys running shoes because Joe College from Stanford wears them.

Stanford wears Nike as a part of an "all-school" deal that gets Nike on football and basketball uniforms, which is all that really matters to a company that wants to make money.

Mr. Knight is a wonderful man. He is responsible for the shed that I live in. If it were not for his generosity, I would not be able to afford every third day. STUPID FRIGGIN AMERICANS. NIKE IS A BUSINESS ALL DECISIONS MADE ARE FOR BUSINESS SAKE. Follow the dollar and you will find the motive. During the present time, many people think that the farm team is the top post collegiate club and that is positive pr. I suppose that Tiger Woods contract is charity as well. Allan Webb has already earned his contract (thru the press it has generated), and you idiots are debating whether or not his improvement will warrant his contract. The two are unrelated. If Webb never runs a race he has earned his contract. Nike already knows that the Farm Team gimick has run its course. Why do you think they are investing in team usa and the oregon project?

I would prefer to thank god for Hansons, personally.

A small company willing to put more energy into running development in the US than any multi-billion dollar company that I can think of supposedly tied to sport, and specifically to running.

All hail Hansons.

i heard nike specially makes jasaris for the top individuals on nikes team. is this true the atheltes get this much individualized attention from nike?

yes...and those ties at Oregon are so damned important that Osaga, for gawd's sake, occupied the prime ad space on the scoreboard at Hayward.

and, for good measure, Dellinger's foray into shoe design met with anything but Nike interest at running ground zero throughout the 80's.

importance to phil? puh-lease?

You are dead nuts on. They have been all about hype, which produces PRESS (3:31, sub 2:10). I am sure that Nike wishes they would produce results because that would be greater press, but if not oh well. IT IS ALL A PR MACHINE.

I don't know any details about Nike/Oregon, but I recall that Nike/Knight did pull some significant support out of Oregon when they joined an anti-sweatshop group that targeted Nike specifically. I don't think they pulled all their support, but I think it was money for a new stadium or some such.

As far as the Farm Team, etc., go, how much support do they get from Nike? A couple of salaries and equipment? Frankly, I'd be really impressed if the Stanford athletic department cared enough about track that they were making the Farm Team a part of their all-sports contract. In most universities, the athletic bureaucracy wouldn't even know something like the Farm Team existed.

Are you suggesting that a university provide funds to an activity that is not part of that university? S--t, I live near Seton Hall...maybe I should ask them to fund me.

Or maybe limit the Nike Farm Team to Stanford T&F alumni? Maybe Stanford alumnus John Elway should apply for some of the Stanford athletic department's money.

Think it through.

It wasn't until family friend David Frohnmeyer (sp?) became the University president that Phil became seriously interested in UO sports. When Frohnmeyer allowed the university to join an anti-sweatshop group, he blamed one of his prexys and went on a full-court press as Phil stopped all personal funding for the university.

Dellinger's foray into shoe design was essentially wrapping that mesh around the midsole of some adidas - long before Nike's influence on campus. Before Nike, Oregon had relations with adidas and SportHill for gear. And having worn those shoes, Nike was right to stay away from Dellinger's design ideas.

And I don't need to tell you about Hayward (or Autzen or Mac Court) anymore - there are swooshes everywhere. Courtesy of Uncle Phil. He also paid for the new Law School building at the university and named it after his father. There's no swooshes on it, but it is across the street from Hayward.

And let's not forget - running is nothing but a marketing hook for Nike. If the money track & running generated for Nike fell out of Phil's pocket, I doubt he would bend over to pick it up. There's more money in biking, "fitness" gear, hiking gear, and virtually every other category Nike markets products for. Running gives Nike the air of authenticity.

Here,here. What are they teaching in college these days? Obviously, not critical thinking or logic.

Kids, memorize these truths. Learn them, live them.

1. Corporations make the world go 'round. If there are no corporations, there are no jobs, no large scale philanthropy (you know, for the arts and universities), no tax base, etc. Deriding corporations is all very hip if you are 19 years old. Take a freakin' Economics class and see the light.

2. Slow runners and Gallowalkers pay the freight for this sport. If it weren't for them, major marathons and road races would not exist and there would be little to no market for running shoes therefore...

3. The shoe companies wouldn't make running shoes and would have no reason to fund running of any kind.

Think about this: What if track and cross country disappeared tomorrow? (NCAA and high schools stopped funding / offering it) It wouldn't matter. The majority of Americans wouldn't miss it and the mid / back-of-the-pack runner would still run his local 5K and enjoy doing it. (Most of you would just seeth about that wouldn't you?)

Real life is not "The X-Files" or "Alias". No one is out to get you. The athletic-industrial complex is not conspiring to screw Hanson's, you, or anyone else. Grow up, stop acting entitled, and quit looking for boogeymen where none exist.

Portland (Nike apologist),

Thanks for the econ lesson I feel so much more informed. Nike is not either good or bad because they are a large company. People are not trying to say that all large corporations are evil. I don't hate Nike because they are large and generate a lot of revenue. I hate what they stand for, which is nothing. They are all hype and no substance. Golf is a perfect example. Nike started marketing Nike Golf before there was Nike Golf. That is a great marketing strategy, by the king of hype. Now when people get on here and bash Nike for their lack of substance you try to defend their actions. You would carry much more weight if you started by saying.

1. The Farm team is all hype.

2. Salazar has had a suspicious background involving drugs.

3. All decisions made by Nike are financial ones

I am not saying that anything is wrong with any of the above. It works for Nike and who is to argue with their marketing strategies. But instead, you try to argue the points that you are flat out wrong about. I would be willing to bet that behind closed doors Nike suits would admit all three of the above.

I forgot a couple of other Nike fallacies.

Marion is clean and that whole thing surrounding her in HS was overblown.

Regina is very unfortunate to always get a virus during major competitions.

That untimely death for Flo Jo wasn't drug related.

Mary Slaney (while being advised by Salazar) was framed.

But it all creates publicity, so who cares.

Isn't it also true that under dark of night Nike secretly shortened the Stanford track to consistently produce PRs and qualifiers for all of its athletes? ;-)

In the last "golden age" of excessive capitalism the robber barons of that time (like Carnegie) felt at least a certain sense of noblesse oblige. These excessively wealthy folk funded things like an endowment for peace, museums, and a rash of library building throughout the entire nation.

If we take the Portland Runner econ lesson to heart, and cannot criticize companys because our economic system is based on them, can't we at least expect, occasionally, these masters of the universe that run them to show at least some patrician sense of duty to the less fortunate?

Portland Runner also points out this one of the fundamental benefits to the large consolidation of wealth our system creates, but I would argue that, anecdotally, corporate giving now and during the dotcom bubble was overall pretty meagre, considering the fortunes being created.

As much as I hate to say it, Bill Gates has shown at least he wants to do something useful with his money. His charitable foundation gives away huge amounts of money, to poor people, no less.

Phil Knight: money to law school and MBA programs. I think we can be down on him just a bit.

And what do we do and say when our public school district decides it cannot or won't fund sports (happening right now in Portland) and cuts backs the school year to a point where the kidsm ight get out in mid-April? Shouldn't we ask the people that have become rich reaping the benefits of the US system to then give back just a bit?

Or should we just shrug and turn away when these same companies patriotically set up corporate headquarters overseas (another trend) to avoid paying US taxes? Rationalize it away by saying, well, these companys give us jobs?