BRS was the only athletic shoe company in the United States selling Japanese made shoes. According to the Encyclopedia for Business, 2nd Edition (2012) "During its first year in business, Blue Ribbon Sports made $8,000; ten years later Knight and Bowerman changed Blue Ribbon Sports to Nike and were making $2 million in sales". .
In 1971 the relationship between BRS and Onitsuka Co. was deteriorating, and with the help of their first employee Jeff Johnson, the brand name Nike was established and Bowerman and Knight decided to become independent. The first BRS retail shop was opened in Santa Monica, Calif in 1966.
With the help of graphic design student Carolyn Davidson at Portland State University, the Nike symbol known internationally as the 'Swoosh' was created and the first line of Nike footwear featuring the design debuted in 1972.
The first athlete to endorse Nike products was Steve Prefontaine, a man who held records in seven distances from 2,000-10,000 miles by the age of twenty-four when he tragically died.
Prefontaine was the first of many internationally recognised sports professionals to endorse Nike, with Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong and many other sports legends and teams being apart of Nike's marketing campaign. .
Nike has been influenced by Globalisation in numerous ways. The most prominent being that through Globalisation and the resulting interconnectedness of countries around the world, Nike has been able to make its products overseas for less cost than manufacturing the shoes on American soil. In 1982, 86% of Nike's footwear products came from Taiwan and Korea. This outsourcing has allowed Nike to expand at an impressive pace, but Nike's use of global sourcing opportunities have also led to Nike facing waves of criticism. Low wages, human rights problems and poor working conditions are among some of the allegations Nike has been accused of profiting from.