Nike Sues Sega and Its Agency Over Game Ad

Nike Inc. has a message for video game publisher Sega of America and its recent basketball ads: Just don’t do it.

The world’s largest maker of athletic shoes and clothing filed suit last week against Sega and its advertising agency claiming their television ad featuring a shattering dunk shot was an unfair copy of an earlier Nike campaign starring basketball legend Michael Jordan.

In the suit filed in federal court in Oregon, Nike alleges that the commercial produced by Sega, a unit of Japan’s Sega Corp., and Leagas Delaney Inc. to promote Sega’s “NBA 2K2” basketball game is too similar to a Nike ad called “Frozen Moment” that depicted Jordan in slow motion.

Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike is asking for an injunction barring the ad from further airplay, an order impounding copies of the ad and either damages for the alleged infringement or a royalty on every copy of the game sold.