The article I am going to review is Athletes Brady, RGIII Buck Nike's NFL Sponsorship (in Practice). This article discusses the current issue with players in the NFL being sponsored by other companies than the sponsor of the league itself (Nike). Last spring, Nike took over as the new equipment and apparel sponsor of the NFL. An issue that will always arise is when players are sponsored by other companies; in this case it is Tom Brady who is sponsored by Under Armour and Robert Griffin III who is sponsored by Adidas. The article explains how the first issue with sponsorship this season was when Robert Griffin III wrote the word “Heart” over the Nike swoosh on his warm up shirt during the pregame of his bout against the New Orleans Saints. The article reveals that the NFL contacted Griffin about the cover up and how he hasn’t tried to do it again since. The other incident the article describes is with Tom Brady. After practice one day at a press conference, Tom Brady put a piece of tape of the Nike swoosh on his shirt for the interview. Tom was never contacted by the league about this action, because “Policy only pertains to game day.” The article ends with quotes from the former Creative Director of Nike, Ernest Lupinacci. Lupinacci is quoted saying that the fact that these players are worried about covering up logos and such is “diminishing” to the players’ reputation.
In my opinion, I don’t see anything wrong with doing these things on practice days like Tom did. I can somewhat agree with Lupinacci about doing this on a game day when one should be totally focused on the game and not focused about covering up logos and such. I found it interesting that covering up the logos ironically brought more attention to Nike because it turned into a public issue through the media and such.
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