The Alcoholic Shoe That Nike Stole

Who wants a beer?

Gerald Heineken.

In 1873, the German entrepreneur brewed the first beer for the company under his last name.

Over 100 years later, the beer is not only still around, but the company is selling more than it ever has before.

In the United States alone the majority of people have not only heard of it but gave it a collective 47% favorability score, beating Bud Light by 8%.

Of course, outside of the US, this beer is no stranger either, racking in $20 billion euros in 2021.

So all this talk about beer. But what does this have to do with Nike?

Can We Use That?

In 2003, Nike decided to drop a shoe. A shoe that was only $65 retail.

A Dunk to be exact.

Green suede, white leather, red branding, black swoosh.

They even had a little red star towards the back of the pair.

Does this seem reminiscent of anything to you?

Because what it looked like to most people was a bottle of Heineken beer.

Heineken especially thought this, so much so that they sued Nike for copyright infringement.

The Expensive Lawsuit

The lawsuit was actually not too expensive for Nike. In reality, they just had to stop producing pairs of shoes immediately.

So a bit unfortunate in terms of the profit they missed out on, but not exactly the worst thing that could’ve happened.

Retailers stopped selling, and ads were taken down.

Since production stopped, what does that mean? Well, it means that there are not too many pairs out there.

And because we know how supply and demand work, it’s a good guess to assume this pair of shoes sells for quite a bit of money.

And indeed they do.

Listings for this shoe are well in the thousands, with the last sale made being $5,500.

There were rumors not too long ago that this shoe would have a 2.0 version released, but SB confirmed this wasn’t happening.

The world still has yet to see if Heineken and Nike are working together to create one of the world’s most loved beer-inspired shoes.

But for now, the disputed 1.0’s will have to suffice.