Nike’s Viral Negativity Problem
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Get in, loser, we're going to complain about Nike….
I want to write about an ongoing Nike phenomenon that is not helping the brand’s current situation. Sneaker culture-themed social media feeds have discovered that negative news about the brand goes viral because unhappy news draws more eyes, but also because Nike is a global brand with sky high name recognition that many people have an emotional connection with. Nike isn’t alone in this. Increasingly, the internet seems addicted to analyzing why culturally important brands have failed the moment they hit a bump in the road.
ESPN analyst Brian Windhorst sparked a negative Nike viral cycle that lasted for days in mid-April when, citing a UBS analyst report, he said the company’s stock had been “obliterated” because “basketball players aren’t as popular as they used to be,” despite Nike itself highlighting basketball as a rare bright spot in its most recent earnings report; meanwhile there was zero response when Adidas reported its own 1Q26 basketball sales were down versus last year.
More recently, Stacy Devino, who is currently employed by Fanatics, kicked off another round of debate with a LinkedIn post in which she blasted the demise of Nike’s SNKRS app, writing, “The org and the people behind SNKRS were obliterated yesterday.” Nike announced layoffs of 1,400 employees, primarily in its technology department, in mid-April, so her post was likely a reaction to employees being officially informed last week and posting about losing their jobs.
The Birth of a Brushfire
I saw Devino’s post last week on Tuesday and DMed her the next day to see if she’d like to discuss what she wrote (as of today, she hasn’t responded—I imagine her DMs are having a day!) When I clicked on her profile, it was then I realized she hadn’t worked at Nike in six years and was employed by the company for just under three years, so basically pre-COVID, a period after which Nike and other brands went whole hog on investing in building out all things online related, as well as the ill-fated blockchain-based digital asset space.
When her LinkedIn post was published on X on May 8, it immediately began to go viral. Not surprisingly a lot of people misinterpreted her stating: “I had started on SNKRS the MONDAY after the Friday that they had let go of nearly 30% of tech in the company…” as a reference to something that happened recently when in fact she was writing about joining the company shortly after wide-reaching layoffs.
Shortly thereafter, House of Heat weighed in with an article featuring yet another former Nike employee, this time anonymous, who claimed, “There are a few people left that are being asked to keep things going. They don't want to be here. The people making the decisions don't understand SNKRS at all.” When asked about how much longer he estimated SNKRS would survive, the source said, “My guess is [SNKRS] ends in 12-18 months.”
While Complex had been holding off from covering what was clearly a flimsily-sourced story, it finally gave into the race-to-the-bottom clicks economy with an article covering the House of Heat source and the LinkedIn poster. Within 24 hours of the story appearing on my feed, it had crossed over from social chatter into “proven fact,” despite being derived from the combination of a misinterpreted LinkedIn post and an anonymous quote from an ex-employee, underscoring how difficult it has become for traditional reporting standards to compete with the speed of viral social media narratives, which begin and end before a source returns an email.
No doubt watching the fracas turn into a full-blown storm from the sidelines, Nike p.r. entered the building, issuing a statement refuting the claim that the app was circling the drain, instead stating it was “deeply committed to SNKRS”:
“Nike App and SNKRS engineering teams into one team. The new, unified team will be now concentrated alongside business and Technology partners at Nike's Philip H Knight campus in Oregon. This new, unified team combines the expertise of engineers previously dedicated to SNKRS with the team behind the Nike app, website and Nike By You – creating one team to better serve consumers, reducing handoffs and driving efficiency.
“SNKRS remains a critical tool in our digital marketplace strategy, and in the future will deliver curated launches alongside always‑on assortments, rich storytelling, a seamless shopping experience and deeper connections to in‑person events – now powered by a unified Nike App and SNKRS engineering team. We remain deeply committed to SNKRS and to providing best-in-class engineering support to create a seamless consumer experience."
And why would Nike kill SNKRS? On its face it seems absurd that a company would delete an app whose popularity and ubiquity would be goals for every other company in existence. And the reset of SNKRS is not surprising given Nike has emphasized on recent earnings calls that it is prioritizing rebuilding wholesale relationships and creating greater product relevance in key categories. Separately, the brand signaled a tech team reorganization when it announced in December that it was eliminating the chief technology officer role in an effort to “remove layers.” Arguably, SNKRS also needs modernization after years of functioning as a platform that frequently left everyday consumers simply trying to give Nike their money frustrated to the extreme. (In her post about launch days, Davino herself referenced 100 million users “trying to get their hands on one of the 5k total pairs.”)
It should be noted, tech layoffs have become commonplace as companies downsize teams built during the COVID-era digital boom, when businesses staffed aggressively around online growth and Nike specifically expanded investments in ecommerce sales, apps and now seemingly nuts ventures like RTFKT. And while the tech layoff wave peaked in 2023, workforce reductions have since become a regular headline, including at businesses still in growth mode.
To be fair, Nike’s stock declines over the past several years have created an opening for these kinds of narratives to gain traction and if a turnaround story began to take hold it would likely “obliterate” the viral nature of take downs. And that’s why this issue isn’t so easily fixed, Nike actually needs to get back on a wining path to silence critics. In the meantime, that is the gift and curse of being a brand with this level of emotional connection, enough that layoffs, basketball commentary or possibly embittered ex-employee chatter can turn into an internet-wide referendum on whether the company is “cooked.” As Oscar Wilde observed 136 years ago, there is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
