What does Nike 'Restructuring' mean for Running World?

I thought New Balance still has control over the dad shoe market.

People will move away from running and join the gutter cleaning crowd.

I agree with you on the Hoka longevity (they are my brand for road), but I think Salomon has a better selection of trail shoes.

Not anymore. Hoka, Brooks and even On increasingly boss that sector now.

It’s still a niche market if we’re talking super shoes. Non-runners still don’t know what they are or will put out $300 to hobby jog a 5k here and there with those. If you look at their product line as a whole, are they really making a dent in other sports? How about their casual lines? I think that is what these budget cuts are taking into account for.

Maybe for younger dads. There is still a certain subset that like their shoes designed in the us and like the widths new balance offers. On has cornered the shoes for medical workers market though.

The guy who runs turkey trot and one other 5k a year isn't buying super shoes but I've seen a lot of mid to back of the packers in super shoes. Even the guy training 500-1000 miles a year will spend money on a pr.

That they’re never making another Streakfly, and the Streakfly 2 will take….uh….ELEVEN years to bring to market? (because they feel like they kind of rushed the first one)

It's a warning of what's coming. Their hold is fracturing as the marketplace has more niche brands that can cater to smaller demographics of customers. Nike is the monolith that is trying to hold on to its grip as 'everything to everyone.' I think the posts that you're reading about the lack of innovation is the "smaller demographic," noticing that there are more niche brands that cater to their niche needs. Nike has moved on from being a sports brand to being a designer brand.

Nike still innovates by their sheer size i.e. they have more money to throw in every division but I think they realized a while ago that it's not going to be innovation that moves the brand. It's the "coolness" factor and that seems to be the direction that the company is going. They are still the leader in world wide sales but where will they be in 20 years?

Canary in the mine.

It won't be good for the sport if Nike takes a hit. Hoka does nothing to advance T&F. Like On, it is a trending old person and yuppie casual shoe company as well as a company for serious trail/road runners.

I would agree that Nike really needs to trim its product lines and rethink rollouts of little advancements in models.

I've never worn Hokas, but the feedback I've had from casual wearers is that the shoes were just what they wanted, but the runners have complained about finishing defects and poor durability.

Some of the comments here are hilariously out of touch. Do you people know anything outside the running world? Hoka is a straight up fashion brand now, which is why they are doing so well. I went into a local store in my area that sells $1200 Italian boots and they had a lot of Hoka and On shoes for sale being tried on by well dressed chicks. There wasn't a single Nike or Adidas in the store. Nike and Adidas are totally lame now except with weird basement dwelling sneaker-freaker types....not the type of customer you want for long term growth.

The people who buy Hoka and On because they are fashionable now may not be a great foundation for long term growth either.

Wejo gaslighting/calling letsrun posts 'nuts,' when 80% of the traffic on this website comes from self-loathing running-obsessives out-of-touch with their realities.... is ironic.

No, I've just witnessed generation after generation of new nike employee complain about their commute from the Pearl District to the Cornell Road exit on Highway 26 as they affix Swooshes to their license plates like some sort of petty passport to Dating App legitimacy and try to buy condos from better-paid tech employees in Forest Grove.

My main point is that what Nike/Adidas sell/promote now is overpriced crap. And yes, hokas are becoming just another piece of overprices crap; they recently opened a Hub in Portland, according to rumor on LinkedIn.

You can be the worldwide leader is shucking nitrogen-infused fertilizer on instagram, but you should still call crap crap.

And let's say, hypothetically, maybe you grow up as a runner in greater Portland, and you rub shoulders with giants.

You try to talk to them, and hope maybe that they remember your name. But it takes you years to realize that they're more worried about losing their contract at nike than remembering who you are. They're unable to mentor, unable really even to think straight. You don't blame 'em. Forget about what the hell they're going to do for the rest of their lives post-Running!

You maybe you even work shoulder to shoulder in warehouses with ex-Olympians, and/or tutor and teach their ADHD children in under-funded, over-crowded Portland Schools, etc. etc.

Then you *grow up*, and your Wharton MBA buddy in private equity in Manhattan tells you how it's standard practice for a Fortune 500 company: that the small PDX business owners you work for, selling Nike apparel at a premium above wholsesale, are being strung along by another Wharton MBA d-bags who work at Nike with supposed 'valuations' of the 'worth' of the small PDX business, trying to keep the small PDX business chugging out the overpriced Swooshes at price-points favorable and subjugated to the Swoosh, whose million odd CPAs are the only ones who really *get it*.

Maybe the ex-nike Olympian you literally worked next to -- at minimum wage versus his commission-bases position -- was hired to grow sales in the front-office, and is only working there to get a better job.

Meanwhile you and the rest of the incompetent, neurodivergent in the warehouse, picking the Swoosh apparel out for orders at minimum wage, together inhale the residue of patent-pending glues and logos of all Greater Portland's disparate Swoosh-sponsored youth teams and high schools, admiring the steam of humidity that rises from the Swoosh sweatshirts manufactured in Central America and the Swoosh singlets sewn together in the Phillipines.

Maybe you're elsewhere. Maybe you have skin in the game, say, in the Air Zoom pod factories where you sign NDAs at the mass-hiring event and get lobster once a decade from your minders down the street in Unincorporated Washington County, in between the dreams of children and the adults who sell the lies, like Lance Armstrong Livestrong wrist-bands.

You don't really exist. You're as much as a ghost if you remember the history of Nike over the past fifty years, because no one wants to think about it. It's too negative.

You see and hear the pounding of AlphaFlies in the neighborhood you've lived in for 20 years, wondering if the Bowerman Track Club dudes doing their weekly tempo on *literally* the same loop, every Sunday at 9am, dreaming if they know who sealed that air into the plastic in Cedar Hills, or who glued the rubber to the ZoomX.... but they don't want, again, to think about it.

None of this helped me get a better feel for whether or not they’re still going to make the Streakfly?

Also, that glue DOES smell pretty good, though, doesn’t it ??

They’re still a 150+ Billion dollar company. So, as said, they’re not going anywhere soon, but underperforming the S&P this year by 30% +23 to -7 is pretty bad.

What about Saucony... Mizuno? The truth is out there. Somewhere.

Nike has WAY too much influence over track and field. No sponsor should ever wield that kind of weight. The NFL doesn't let any one sponsor have that much power, neither does FIFA. The less influence Nike has over the sport the better.