Nike Ends Pacts to Outfit Teams at 3 Schools

Nike, one of the nation’s leaders in outfitting college sports teams and manufacturing licensed apparel with university and team logos, and its chairman, Phil Knight, have withdrawn millions of dollars in financial support from three universities in the last three weeks.

The University of Michigan, the University of Oregon and Brown University recently have joined a student-led group that wants to impose tougher standards concerning wages and working conditions in Nike’s overseas factories, which some critics have called sweatshops.

Nike’s and Knight’s decisions, college officials say, constitute a form of retaliation against the institutions for their stances on the labor issue. Nike had contracts under which it outfitted all of Michigan’s varsity athletic teams and Brown’s men’s and women’s ice hockey teams. Knight, who has given millions of dollars to Oregon, had planned to donate $30 million toward an $80-million renovation of the university’s football stadium.

“Clearly, the CEO of Nike and the corporate entity [are] . . . in this triple shot across the bow of the institutions involved, seemingly saying, ‘Our financial support is not unconditional,’ ” said Sheldon Steinbach, vice president and general counsel for the Washington-based American Council on Education, an organization of the nation’s colleges and universities.

Last week, Nike broke off negotiations with the University of Michigan for a contract extension that, like Nike’s other contracts with colleges, would have been used to develop brand identification. In exchange for cash and apparel, shoes and equipment manufactured by Nike, colleges agree to have their athletes and coaches wear the apparel with the Beaverton, Ore.-based company’s familiar swoosh. The colleges also allow Nike to manufacture replica uniforms and other clothing with the college’s mark or logo, which also carry the swoosh.

Nike officials said the situations are not related and their timing is coincidental.

“This is about finance and business. We’re not shy about saying what’s on our mind.” said Vada Manager, Nike’s director of global issues management.

At the center of the controversy is the Workers Reform Consortium, a recently formed student-led group that is trying to persuade schools to be more aggressive in monitoring conditions at overseas factories producing apparel that carries university logos.