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Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick famously ”took a knee” during the US national anthem and flying of the flag before an NFL game in 2016 to protest against racism. Some people objected to what they saw as unpatriotic behaviour, while others applauded, and followed, his protest. Kaepernick said at the time ”this is bigger than football” and Nike’s decision to use him in the 30th anniversary celebrations of its ‘Just Do it’ campaign has had a similarly divisive affect on Americans. Since its launch, the #NikeBoycott hashtag is trending on Twitter with people sharing images of themselves destroying Nike products and others ridiculing such behaviour. However, online Nike sales are up 31%. But does Nike, a sportswear brand, have a right to take a stand on racial injustice?

Do sponsors have a ‘social responsibility’ to speak out about racism in this way?
i believe that nike does have a responsibility to speak about racism in such ways as it will allow the problem to get much more publicity even if it is controversial. this has been proven since online nike sales even went up by 31%, meaning that not only will it benefit their profits. but is also helps make awareness of racism and will hopefully help get rid of racism in sport. it is also argued that nike only supported Kaepernick to boost their own profits. however, i do not believe this is true because this is not the first time nike has tried to raise awareness of racism, as they also backed raheem sterling after he received abuse in a football game against Chelsea. Brands such as Nike, have immense influence in today’s society which is why i believe that they felt that they had to defend Kaepernick, as he was only taking a stand against racism and not the USA which is how a lot of people feel was what he did. There is also enormous risk in Nike taking on this issue and being found to be hypocritical. If people accused Nike of racism, sexism or showed the business to be unethical in the way it treats people, this could result in long-term reputational damage. because of the huge amount of damage at risk, i believe that nike didn't just defend Kaepernick for the profits because of the size of the risk, because if it went wrong for them, it could have destroyed the business.
Has Colin Kaepernick gained more than anyone in this whole saga?
despite all of this, i do not believe that Kaepernick gained more than anyone as i think that Kaepernick if anything has actually lost more than anyone because he actually lost his job because of the incident. if anything the only thing that Kaepernick did gain from this was publicity for racism, which was a big part of his aims from the protest.

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racism has many different negative effects on sport, affecting more than just the targeted athlete. racism affects team cohesion, creates economic issues and also has a bad influence on adolescents and society as a whole. racist incidents have an effect on team cohesion and society because this can cause opposing factions to develop, as well as perpetuating stereotypes throughout society. racist incidents can also cost a team financially, as racist incident may lower the fan base meaning that there are less ticket sales, the team can also be fined and also they may even lose sponsors as a result.

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racism is discrimination and abuse aimed at people of a different ethnic background, skin colour or religion. it is based on belief that one race is superior.
racism in sport has been around since the beginning, and will arguably stay in sport for a lot longer from now, despite the effort to try and stop this. the first recorded act of racism in sport was in baseball on the 14th of July 1887. this was because of the colour line, which kept teams which had any players with different colour from playing. another example of racism in sport is in basketball. white people and black people used to play basketball separately and slightly differently. however, when integration in the late 1950's was introduced, it was not fully accepted, but both black and white people started to play the same type of basketball, with each other. there are many different types of racism. however, in sport there are three particular types of racism which stand out. these are television, tabloids/magazines and unconscious racism, which is racism which is carrying out the act or thought of racial discrimination without realising. other examples of racism in football include throwing peanuts and bananas, and even making hissing noises to symbolise the sounds of a gas chamber in WWII as a reference to the jewish.

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it is a well-known fact that male sports have much more media coverage than female sports. in fact, five out of every six names that appear on TV are men, so why does this happen? a study has shown that male sports have more coverage because male sports have a greater demand for sponsorship advertisement because more people watch it. however, people only watch female sports less than male sports because they are not used to female sports being covered on TV so it isn't seen as something popular or even normal to watch. this is because in the 1900s it wasn't seen as normal for females to play sport. this was until the world wars began, which is when women's football became possibly the most popular it has ever been, but since the wars ended men's sport began to dominate once again meaning that female sport were pushed to the side because more people wanted to see the male sports. as a result of this, there is now a stigma that female sports are not as important as men's because it isn't traditional and hasn't been around for as long. because of this, it has had a knock-on effect into today's society as a lot of people still do not see female sports as suitable to be covered on live TV as they believe it is just not important. many people also believe that female pundits should not be in sport as they just don't belong there. some believe this because they think that it doesn't sound natural, just because they aren't used to it. others think this because they believe that they just aren't as good as male pundits because they just shouldn't be there, and because of this some people even claim that they would rather watch a full football match with the sound off rather than listen to a female commentating on the match.