Mary Cain’s book and Nike’s cross-athlete study reveal the same pattern of corporate hypocrisy

Nike presents itself as a company that goes beyond selling sportswear. It’s not, but it wants people to think it is.

The company preaches left-wing talking points like “inclusion,” “diversity,” “body image,” and other empty platitudes (while the only goal remains to sell as much merchandise as possible).

On their website, Nike has a page titled “Celebrating Every Girl’s Body,” where it says sports should celebrate the “unique beauty and diversity of our bodies,” warns against a “narrow definition of beauty,” criticizes messages that promote “undereating and overtraining,” and urges adults to create “Free Spaces for Body Talk.” On Nike’s other page, “No Pride, No Sport,” the company says it is committed to “LGBTQIA+ and visibility in sports” and says its vision is one where “every body is invited to play.”

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So, people may be shocked to find out that when it comes time to pay endorsers to provide Nike apparel (and, sell more Nike apparel), it’s not exactly about making sure “everyone’s invited.”

That’s what makes the new memoir of Nike Oregon Project runner Mary Cain a real problem for the sportswear behemoth. Promoting the book on Sarah Spain’s podcast, Cain described what he called “hot girl contracts,” basically saying that Nike would openly sign other women because they were “hot.” At that time, he faced the talk of “salary reduction” or “termination” under the performance standards, despite being faster than some of the athletes reserved for marketing value.

Cain’s book, “This Is Not About Running,” is not interesting because it reveals that Nike wants to make money. Of course, Nike wants to make money. It is an American organization and that is always the goal.

What is interesting is the gap between the sermon and the behavior. Cain’s memoir highlights the disparity between Nike’s fitness-promoting language and its actual marketing. In an excerpt published in “Outside,” Cain writes that he put on “five-pound Nike hand weights” and went on a long power trip because Alberto Salazar (who was the head coach of the Nike Oregon Project) told him he had “more fat” to lose after measuring the hydrostatic weight.

Cain says at the time he weighed 115 pounds and says he couldn’t even access the scale file and was immediately told the result. That sounds like a case of a Nike executive pushing “diet and overtraining,” which is exactly the opposite of what the company says it promotes.

Salazar denied any wrongdoing, and The Guardian reports that he and Nike settled a lawsuit filed by Cain in 2023 alleging abuse.

The release of the memo gets worse from there. In The guardIn an interview tied to the book, Cain describes an environment at Nike where people are supposed to know what’s going on and let it go on. The episode reports that Salazar’s manager and Nike’s then-vice president of marketing allegedly told Cain that cutting his hair might help him lose weight. She also reports that she was told she couldn’t because it “wouldn’t look good,” meaning she needed a different bra because people could see how big her breasts were.

Let’s go back to Nike’s own website and see how that compares to the beauty they pretend to have. Does this story sound like Nike is “Celebrating Every Girl’s Body,” or one where they want that body to look a certain way to sell more sneakers?

Nike pretends to be a company about more than selling sneakers, but it’s actually a company about selling sneakers. (Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters)

And if this all sounds familiar, it is. Because Cain’s memory isn’t the only time Nike’s public image collides with fundamental questions about what the company actually does.

As OutKick first reported in 2025, evidence strongly suggests that Nike was funding research on transgender youth players as young as 12 years old. In our report, two researchers involved in this project, Dr. Kathryn Ackerman and Joanna Harper, have publicly stated that Nike is sponsoring the research. The New York Times also reported that Nike was sponsoring it, and later told OutKick that it was confident in the accuracy of that report.

Then came Nike’s response, and it was a typical business trick. At first, Nike did not answer repeated questions. Then, after public pressure mounted, a Nike executive later told OutKick that the study “had not been initiated” and was “not moving forward.” But when OutKick asked if Ackerman and Harper were wrong when they said Nike funded it, the official reportedly said “nobody was wrong” and suggested there were “gaps in the chain of custody.” Nike hid in vague language because she didn’t want to explain herself.

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OutKick also discovered that the 2024 winter edition of the Boston Children’s Hospital Magazine described the project as “supported in part by Nike, Inc.” and said that the study was designed to answer questions about physiologic and athletic changes from gender-affirming care. So now the community had researchers saying Nike funded this study, a large hospital publication saying Nike supported it, and New York Times standing by reporting that Nike sponsored it. However, Nike still prefers silence and avoidance.

Then the story changed again. Months later, Harper told Outsports that Nike backed off after “the haters got wind of it,” which only made the whole thing more difficult because it completely dispelled the idea that the study “didn’t take off.” In other words, Nike was apparently willing to allow some people to speak publicly of its support when the transgender movement was a popular policy, but when the scrutiny came (as Americans realized what was really happening in the world of “gender care”), the company remained silent.

And that’s why the trans-study report is part of the same column as Mary Cain’s memoir.

These are not two separate stories for Nike. Rather, both are evidence of the same core problem within the company.

Nike preaches left-wing talking points, but ultimately it’s nothing more than a company with the sole purpose of making money. (Stock)

Nike wants to be applauded by the public, but mostly it wants to please the loudest leftists who dominate social media. That’s why its website contains a page dedicated to body confidence; that is why it uses words like “integration” and “diversity”; that’s why there are so many catchy slogans about belonging, pronouns and who’s playing.

But when real scrutiny comes, whether it’s a former star publishing a memoir about how a female athlete’s body was really treated within a Nike-affiliated program, or reporters asking basic questions about the research of a young athlete who explodes politically, Nike suddenly becomes a master of silence, back-and-forth comments and strategic obscurity.

That’s the part to go, not that Nike is greedy or calculating. Yes, of course.

Companies have to make money. They must seek attention, market share and relevance. There is nothing shameful about Nike trying to sell more shoes or back causes that it believes will help the brand. The problem is pretending this is all moral enlightenment instead of corporate strategy. It makes Nike a pretend money making machine. This doesn’t even include how the company shuts its mouth about China (since someone has to make those shoes and there are 1.4 billion potential consumers in the country) while crying “social justice” in America.

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Nike is free to make as much money as possible; that is capitalism. No one is offended by that. But most people are good enough at teaching. Keep everyone body-positivity pablum where social memo quotes describe a young runner who is sent on a wrist power walk after being told she has fat to lose.

Cain also alleged that Nike pays less talented athletes more money because they do better marketing. She referred to what is being referred to publicly as ‘hot girl contracts,’ describing Nike’s discussions about signing other women to market while facing talk of pay cuts or layoffs despite the rush.

And, duh. Better looking people usually sell more products.

But protect everyone from the talk of inclusion because when it comes time to be “inclusive” about who gets the sales checks, it turns out it’s a very special group.

Stop educating Americans about “LGBTQIA+ and visibility in sports” and include basic questions about research involving “gender-identifying” youth and medical reform when OutKick comes knocking.

Mary Cain’s memoir and OutKick’s reporting do not prove that Nike is uniquely evil. They prove something very common and very useful: Nike is a big company that likes to signal when it’s good for business. The invisible likes you almost like a simple excuse.

This is why the book of Cain is important. Not because it tells everyone that Nike wants money. Everyone already knew that. It’s important because it reminds people that when Nike starts educating Americans about bodies, inclusion or fairness, the first response should be very simple: sell shoes and save us the sermon.

OutKick reached out to Nike for comment on this story, but the company did not respond to our request.