
Nike Drops Kyrie
Cancels “Kyrie 8” due for release later this month
Nike Inc. on Friday suspended its relationship with Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving and canceled its next Irving-branded shoe release in the aftermath of his promotion of an anti-Semitic documentary.
The Nets had already suspended Irving at least five games after he stopped short of fully disavowing the documentary on two occasions. Irving later issued a more fulsome apology late on Thursday for promoting a project he said contained “false anti-Semitic statements.”
But the apology was not enough to stop Nike from suspending ties with Irving.

The $140 Kyrie 8 “Circle of Life” which pays tribute to the basketball star’s mother Elizabeth Ann Irving
“At Nike, we believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form of antisemitism. To that end, we’ve made the decision to suspend our relationship with Kyrie Irving effective immediately and will no longer launch the Kyrie 8,” Nike said in a statement.
“We are deeply saddened and disappointed by the situation and its impact on everyone,” the statement said.
The shoe deal is reportedly worth $11 million.
The Nets will also not pay him during his suspension. He is on a $36.9 million contract this season, after having earned nearly $195 million in his previous 11 seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and the Nets, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
The Nets had said he would be suspended no less than five games and until he undergoes a series of unspecified “remedial measures.”
He played in just 29 of the Nets’ 82 regular season games for the 2021-22 season after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine despite a mandate by the city of New York.
The controversy comes at a fraught moment for Jews in the United States. The FBI warned on Thursday there was a credible threat to synagogues in New Jersey, a state that lies just across the harbor from the New York City borough of Brooklyn, which has one of the densest populations of Jews in the world.
Irving becomes the second black star to be dropped by sports shoe company following Adidas cutting ties with Kanye West.
Source Reuters/Nike
About Post Author
felastory
Share this:
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on X (Opens in new window)
- Click to print (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Nextdoor (Opens in new window)
- More
Related
More Stories
Give Us Our $830 Billion or Else
US top general warns Congress give us our $830 billion or else recruiting will suffer and new Pentagon projects will...
Terror in Jerusalem
Terror in Jerusalem two Hamas terrorists kill several Israelis at a bus stop as Washington mulls a deal that will...
Ground the V-22 Osprey
Tokyo meekly asks the US to ground the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor craft after one came down in waters off...
Kissinger Dies
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger dies at 100 he oversaw the withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam...
Non-Human Craft
Central Intelligence Agency recovers nine complete non-human craft at crash sites worldwide according to the British Daily Mail American spies...
Truce Extended
Qatar, Hamas and US say truce extended for another two days more Israeli hostages expected to be exchanged for Palestinian...
Average Rating