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Purpose and benefits

Phil Knight (1938–) followed his early promise on the running track at the University of Oregon with an equal talent for running a successful business. The product was, fittingly, the athletics shoe, which Knight, along with his partner and ex-athletics coach Bill Bowerman, revolutionised, transforming a basic accessory into a high-tech piece of athletics equipment. With a stroke of marketing genius, Knight chose the name Nike, Greek goddess of victory, for his brand in 1971, and the ‘swoosh’ as his logo in 1972. Nike really hit the big time in the 1980s when its athletics shoes, starting with the Air Jordan in 1985, ran off the track and into mainstream fashion.