Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) announced today that it has ended its contract with ex-Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice. Although it has been almost six months since Rice was arrested and indicted for third-degree aggravated assault for punching his wife, who was then his fiancée, it was only yesterday that Baltimore Ravens terminated their contract with Rice after an additional video of the incident surfaced. TMZ had released the first video of the incident, which made NFL change its policy on domestic violence. Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) is actually one of the last endorsers who has dropped Rice, almost all other major ones have already dropped him. NBC Sports’ Dave Briggs was on CNBC recently to discuss the story behind Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) dropping Rice.
“Well Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) is the last actually, it was the last endorsement that Ray Rice had left, there was actually a bit of a hold out on this, a bit of formality, but it was surprising to see them wait to be the last endorser to drop him, not sure what they were waiting for, EA sports, also the maker of those Madden NFL football games, they have scrubbed his image from the videogame entirely and its update […], Briggs said.
Briggs believes that it’s not really sure if Baltimore Raven’s fans will exchange the jerseys featuring Rice’s name when the team offers to do so as they are the same fans who welcomed Rice back to the team, even when they knew of this domestic abuse incident. He also revealed that NFL’s Chairman hadn’t seen the video of the incident even though most people knew that it existed with casino in which the incident happened and which subsequently closed down.
As of June 30, 2014, Donald Chiboucis’ Columbus Circle Investors owns over 3.5 million shares in Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE).
Disclosure: None
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