Nike Mails It In On Tebow Branding

I popped into NikeTown SF this afternoon to check out the fall soccer gear on offer (Arsenal away shirts look better in person than on TV), and on the way out I came across this:

Irony alert: these were all stitched by Buddhists, Taoists & Hindus

These thoughts all entered my mind in the two minutes it took me to get out of the store and back on the street:

1. Bo Jackson will not be pleased.

2. Surely somewhere, TEBOW CRIES and/or TEBOW BLOWS modifications of this shirt are in production, and will be available for cash purchase from entrepreneurs in all of the other NFL stadium parking lots this fall.

3. Somewhere, Gary Danielson is wearing this shirt, and only this shirt, and touching himself alone in the dark while watching CBS Gator game reruns and blasting "Pictures Of You" by The Cure on his stereo.

4. Someone in the creative department at Nike mailed it in on this one. Re-hash a 20 year old campaign for a star athlete that was miles different from this one instead of coming up with a creative new branding. On the other hand, they were done in 5 minutes and able to take a long lunch in the park, instead of grinding all day in the office researching and brainstorming ideas, so respect. Either way, I'm surprised executives signed off on this; it's just so lazy and out of place- the two people being compared are so different a) football wise b) personality wise 3) public perception wise, that the theme falls on it's face from jump. It's like big tobacco casting Tim Gunn as the new Marlboro Man.

5. Nike really should have played up the Football Jesus angle with this. Perhaps the shirt should say TEBOW KNOWS (A PRIORI)

6. This is really an opportunity for the Mormons to counter. They should get Adidas on the phone, pronto, and get a MAX HALL KNOWS MORE shirt into production ASAP.

7. Florida, the UF diaspora, the Bible Belt, and Colorado Springs have their work cut out to buy enough of these to keep this as a viable national brand for Nike, because it's hard to see them moving alot of product anywhere else. Denver maybe, if he heals Knowshon's hamstring by waving his hand over it.