Why would Nike sponsor a cheat?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

Nike spends a lot of money sponsoring and marketing some of the best athletes in the world. It doesn’t just back global superstars like Serena Williams and Cristiano Ronaldo on the field, but off them too. It made the American football player Colin Kaepernick as the face of an advertising campaign after he protested against racial injustice by kneeling during the US national anthem. The events of the last few days don’t fit Nike’s preferred narrative. The firm has shut down the Oregon Project, its elite training programme, after the main coach there, Alberto Salazar, was found guilty of cheating by the US anti-doping agency. Nike says it doesn’t accept Salazar was deliberately cheating and is supporting his appeal against the ban. Matthew Price hears from two people who’ve followed this story from the start. The BBC’s Mark Daly first exposed Salazar in a Panorama investigation four years ago. And Matt Lawton, the chief sports writer for The Times, has been inside Nike’s controversial Oregon Project. Producers: Philly Beaumont and Duncan Barber Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Matthew Price.
0:08.6	This is Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4.
0:11.0	Every day we ask one big question about one big story.
0:14.0	Today why would Nike sponsor a cheat?
0:27.0	If people say your dreams are crazy, if they laugh at what you think you can do.
0:40.0	Now we all know that Nike spends a lot of money marketing the best athletes in the world.
0:43.6	Good.
0:45.6	Stay that way.
0:46.6	They're not just breaking records and winning gold.
0:49.4	In the Nike universe, they're forces for good.
0:52.2	Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.
0:58.0	But what's happened in the last few days doesn't really fit that Nike narrative.
1:01.0	Don't believe you have to be like anybody to be somebody.
1:06.0	The firm has shut down its elite running program after the main coach there,
1:11.0	one of the biggest names in US sport in the 80s, a guy called Alberto Salazar,
1:16.0	was found guilty of cheating by the US Anti-Doping Agency, USADA.
1:22.0	He was banned from coaching for four years.
1:25.0	So don't ask if your dreams are crazy.
1:28.0	Ask if they're crazy enough. earth.
1:35.0	If you haven't heard the name Salazar,
1:40.0	then you will have heard the name of some of the athletes he's worked with.
	...

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