Thirty-year-old Irving shared a link on social media to the film From Jews to Blacks: Wake Up Black America, which contains conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial. He was criticized for this not only by part of the public, but also by the NBA management and his club.
The 2016 NBA champion with Cleveland, world champion (2014) and Olympic champion (2016) said on Wednesday that he is against all forms of hatred and decided to donate 500 thousand dollars to groups that fight against it. However, because he “refused to state unequivocally that he does not hold anti-Semitic views,” the Nets suspended him for five games without pay on Thursday.
A response from Nike followed on Friday. “At Nike, we believe that there is no place for hatred and we condemn all forms of anti-Semitism. That is why we have decided to end our collaboration with Kyrie Irving with immediate effect and will not release the Kyrie 8 (model),” company officials said.
Irving signed with Nike in 2011 shortly after being the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. Three years later, the first model from his shoe edition went on sale, the popularity of which led to the fact that, according to Reuters, the collaboration with Nike brings him 11 million dollars (269 million crowns) a year.
A native of Melbourne, Australia, he is famous for his controversial views. In the past, he disputed that the Earth was round, for which he later apologized to teachers. Last year, he refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus and had to miss most of Brooklyn’s home games in the season because of it.
Irving is the second American celebrity to lose a lucrative deal with a major sports shoe company in recent weeks due to anti-Semitism. In late October, Adidas parted ways with rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who had his Yeezy line of shoes and other products within the company, over his anti-Semitic comments. According to Forbes magazine, collaboration with Adidas represented 1.5 billion dollars (about 36.5 billion crowns) of the rapper’s net worth.
