NBC Pulls Nike ‘Slasher’ Commercial

Nike Chairman Phil Knight said Monday that NBC has pulled one of the athletic shoe giant’s commercials--a “slasher” movie parody--from the television network’s Olympic advertising lineup.

The ad begins with distance runner Suzy Favor Hamilton spotting a man in a hockey mask, much like the “Jason” character in the hugely popular “Friday the 13th” movies, preparing to attack her with a chain saw.

Hamilton runs off and keeps up such a strong pace that the masked attacker collapses in wheezing exhaustion. The tag line at the end of the ad says: “Why sport? You’ll live longer.”

The ad drew laughs from the crowd at Nike’s annual shareholder meeting in Portland on Monday, as did a second ad featuring Olympic cyclist Lance Armstrong using mouth-to-trunk resuscitation to revive a circus elephant that quit breathing.

The answer to the question “Why sport?” in the Armstrong ad is “Healthy lungs.”

An NBC spokeswoman said the network accepted the ad “subject to audience complaint.”

“Due to adverse audience reaction, we pulled the ad early this morning,” said Maria Battaglia at NBC headquarters in New York.

She said the network received thousands of phone calls and e-mails critical of the ad.

Nike Vice President Charles Denson said company officials were disappointed by the response.

“I guess we felt it was a little ironic,” Denson said, because “they [NBC] pre-approved the ad before it ran in the Olympic spot.”

At the shareholder meeting before it was learned the ad had been pulled, Denson responded to a question asking whether the ad might be seen as encouraging violence toward women.

He said it was intended to be a parody and that Hamilton had fun filming the ad.

“We have a history of making controversial ads, and we certainly have succeeded in that,” Denson said.