The vanishing Nike brand?

A couple of weekends ago, I got hooked watching the North Carolina basketball game, amazed at how fast and flexibly these gigantic kids could play and jump. Later on, during a timeout, I realized how their pristine light blue uniforms had the very recognizable 'jumpman' imagotype on it.

No traces of the Nike word nor the famously trademarked swoosh. Just a simple abstraction of the silhouette of Michael Jordan about to dunk, evoking the perfect 50 he scored in the 1988 All Star dunk contest. How has this happened?

What started with a simple sponsoring of a sneaker, the famous Air Jordan I, has turned into a full-fledged brand, with so much presence that has managed to displace the omnipotent Nike. Other sportsmen, such as Stan Smith or Chuck Taylor, have given their name to sneakers in the past, but no company had dared to turn them into a full clothing collection across materials and product categories. Is the Jordan brand the first one to achieve this? More importantly, is it going to be the last? Probably not..

Nike's symbolic juggernaut presence has disappeared from the Basketball line, but if you pay attention to all their sponsored athletes, it is starting to play a secondary role visually speaking. Nike-sponsored Tiger Woods and his TW logo embody excellence and precision in golf. Lance Armstrong and the 10//2 logo, signing the date he was diagnosed with cancer, symbolizes tenacity and will to overcome difficulties. Roger Federer RF aristocratic serif logo symbolizes elegance and style.

If you think about it, is quite incredible no one thought about this before: why put so much effort and money on building a brand through an explosion of advertisements with cultural references and sports culture values when you can actually have the embodiment of the values, the best sportsmen themselves, be the brand?

And the question remains: Will the Nike swoosh ever disappear forever ever and leave its throne to a constellation of brands? If still in use, will it be exclusively used as a trump card when trying to introduce the company into sports in which they have not sponsored any legend? Will they ever buy Pele's image to create a football line?

Are we witnessing the dusk of Nike as we know it?