Who Owns Nike?

Nike is controlled by the family of its founder, Phil Knight, despite being a public company. Nike, Inc. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but its shares are split into two classes: the Class A shares elect three-quarters of the board and are held almost entirely by the Knight family, while the publicly traded Class B shares elect the remaining quarter. In Britain the register offers nothing — NIKE (UK) LIMITED was dissolved on 4 June 2024. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Nike today?

Nike, Inc. of Beaverton, Oregon, is owned by its shareholders. But ownership and control diverge here more sharply than at almost any company of its size.

Anyone buying Nike shares on the market buys Class B stock. Those shares carry economic rights and elect a minority of the board. The Class A shares, which are not publicly traded, elect the majority — and the Knight family holds essentially all of them.

So the answer depends on the question. By economics, Nike is widely held by institutions and the public. By control, it is a family company.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

Nike, Inc. is the ultimate parent and nothing sits above it. Its subsidiaries are organised by region and function.

Phil Knight’s Class A holding was transferred to Swoosh, LLC, an entity controlled by his son Travis Knight — the succession mechanism by which control passed to the next generation without the shares reaching the market. Travis Knight is also chairman of the animation studio Laika, and the arrangement means Nike’s controlling votes sit with a private holding company rather than with an individual.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

The largest economic holders of Class B stock are the index managers — Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street — holding on behalf of the investors in their funds, exactly as on this site’s other US-listed profiles.

The controlling holder is Swoosh, LLC and the Knight family through it. This is a distinct mechanism from the ones documented elsewhere on this site, and worth separating carefully:

• Alphabet and Roblox use vote multipliers — one share, ten or twenty votes.
• Comcast fixes a constitutional one-third of the votes in a single class.
• Kering uses French double voting rights earned by holding period; Stellantis the Dutch equivalent.
• Nike does something different again: its classes elect different numbers of directors. The Class A holders do not out-vote everyone else on every resolution; they simply choose most of the board.

That is a seventh distinct route to founder control, and arguably the most direct: it does not dilute other shareholders’ votes on ordinary business, it just removes their ability to change the board.

Official records and evidence

Companies House establishes nothing about Nike, and the reason is worth stating plainly: NIKE (UK) LIMITED (01887016) was dissolved on 4 June 2024. There is no longer a UK-registered Nike subsidiary.

What remains are branches of overseas companies — NIKE RETAIL UK (BR003350), opened 1 January 1996, and NIKE 360 UK BRANCH (BR017640), opened 1 June 2015. A foreign establishment registration carries no PSC register and no ownership disclosure at all.

Searching the register is actively misleading. Of 249 companies matching “Nike”, none on the first page belongs to the sportswear company. NIKE CONSTRUCTION LIMITED (01756373) has traded from John Nike Way, Bracknell since 1983 and is unconnected to the American business — the surname is simply a surname, and the leisure group behind it long predates Nike’s arrival in Britain.

Nike’s ownership is established instead through SEC filings: the annual proxy statement sets out the two share classes, their board-election rights and the Knight family’s holdings.

Ownership history and changes

Nike was founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports by Phil Knight, then a business graduate, and Bill Bowerman, his former running coach at the University of Oregon. It began importing Japanese running shoes before making its own.

• 1971 — renamed Nike, after the Greek goddess of victory; the Swoosh is commissioned from a design student for a reported $35.
• 1980 — flotation, with the dual-class structure preserving founder control from the outset.
• 2016 — Knight steps down as chairman; the Class A shares move to Swoosh, LLC under Travis Knight.

Nike has never been acquired and has had no change of control in more than sixty years. Its ownership has passed within one family, by design, through a structure set up before the company was public.

Related companies and brands

Nike owns Jordan Brand and Converse. Jordan is a Nike division rather than a separate company, notable because Michael Jordan receives a royalty on its sales without owning it — one of the clearest cases anywhere of a name generating enormous value for someone who is not the owner.

Nike sold Hurley in 2019 and Umbro, the English football brand, in 2012 — Umbro now belongs to the Iconix group, not to Nike.

Nike is not connected to Adidas, Puma, Under Armour, New Balance or Alo, all separately owned and covered elsewhere on this site. Adidas and Puma were founded by two brothers who fell out, and remain separate companies to this day.