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Nike Elites: Inside the Madness

Inside Access: Behind the Rise of the Nike Elite Basketball Crew Sock

This source accomplishes, quite simply, exactly what Nike wants it to. It is a fairly lengthy summary of the beginning and present of the Nike Elite phenomenon. Its goal is to present the sock as cool and iconic (as in, everyone should have one) as well as a legitimate technological leap. While never mentioning any claim that the hype regarding the socks is unnecessary, it does its best to refute that claim from its roots. Whether or not it is correct in doing so is the subject of my paper.

The article starts by explaining the origins of the Nike Elite. The sock "came to life"--a subtle attempt to make the socks feel almost like a friend--when it was introduced for the USA Men's Basketball Team in 2007. Nike pats itself on the back in mentioning that "player feedback was positive, to say the least." The entire rhetoric of the opening section serves to make the Nike Elite seem like something greater than simply a new line of socks. The reality may well be that a new line of socks was exactly what happened, but it is Nike's job to convince the reader otherwise.

The latter section of the article focuses more broadly on the timeline of the socks' retail career. The text chronicling the history is littered with mentions of the technological superiority of the sock, and even more so of the entire line of socks. Perhaps more intriguing is the mentions of a link between sock design and athletic performance. In a quote from one of their top designers, the match between design and athletics is noted to be where "the magic happens." Could it really be one's socks, and not their preparation and training, that creates this "magic?" Nike insists that we believe so.

The honesty of this source must be viewed through a thoroughly skeptical lens: Nike's goal is to make money, not to truthfully portray its socks. Americans tend to believe that corporations lie to them all the time. That is not to say that Nike's words should be assumed false. It is only to say that no assumptions should be made in either direction about the veracity of such statements. The intersection--or lack thereof--of the truth and Nike's message will be thoroughly investigated in my paper.

Nike. "Inside Access: Behind the Rise of the Nike Elite Basketball Crew Sock." //Nikeinc.com //. Nike, 15 Jan. 2013. Web. 1 June 2014.