Thirteen years ago Nike, the sports equipment manufacturer that gave us the 180 dollar basketball sneaker, decided to get into the hockey business.
They bought Montreal-based Canstar Sports and their Bauer product-line for
395 million dollars.
DNike then proceeded to re-invent the hockey marketing wheel. They moved their manufacturing facility to Asia and switched the head office from Montreal to New Hampshire. Basically, Nike was telling Canadians they knew nothing about hockey marketing. Their secret was, put the "Swish" logo on their skate and raise the price from four-hundred dollars a pair to seven hundred. No matter that the Made-In-Asia skates didn't fit North American players feet properly. The bright bulbs in New Hampshire also tried to foist white hockey skates on it's buying public in a not-so-subtle attempt at planned obselescence.
This kind of thing may have worked in the ghettos of the United States where kids were being murdered for 180-dollar shoes that cost 3-dollars to make in China. It failed to fool the hockey buyer.
This week Nike announced they were selling out. Financial analysts tell us they won't get half the price they paid for the company.
For once a corporate glutton like Nike with it's dispicable marketing and manufacturing strategies has run headlong into a wall.
Makes you feel warm and fuzzy.
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