Nike launched its first Tremendous Bowl industrial in 27 years on Sunday, and it garnered blended critiques.
The advert featured 9 of the sportswear big’s signed feminine athletes. They responded to misconceptions about and critiques of girls in sports activities, with phrases similar to “You possibly can’t fill a stadium, so fill it,” and “You possibly can’t be emotional, so be emotional.”
Nike’s Tremendous Bowl industrial ended with the road, “No matter you do, you’ll be able to’t win. So win.”
The corporate was praised for selecting to characteristic ladies athletes, and plenty of noticed the advert as an indication of the rising reputation of girls’s sports activities.
However others thought Nike’s industrial was controversial.
Right here’s what it’s essential to know concerning the ladies featured within the Nike Tremendous Bowl industrial, the controversy behind it and the way social media reacted.
Who was within the 2025 Nike Tremendous Bowl advert?
Nike picked 9 of its signed feminine athletes to star within the industrial:
Sha’Carri Richardson
Caitlin Clark
Sabrina Ionescu
Jordan Chiles
JuJu Watkins
Alexia Putellas
Sophia Smith Wilson
Aryna Sabalenka
A’ja Wilson
The ladies are additionally featured on a that’s already promoting out.
Nike’s ‘Simply Do It’ tee, releasing this Sunday, celebrating ten of their star ladies’s athletes:
⭐️ Aryna Sabalenka⭐️ Caitlin Clark⭐️ Jordan Chiles⭐️ Alexia Putellas⭐️ Paige Bueckers⭐️ Sabrina Ionescu⭐️ JuJu Watkins⭐️ Sophia Smith⭐️ A’ja Wilson⭐️ Sha’Carri Richardson
Richardson is an enormous identify within the monitor and area world. She earned her first Olympic gold and silver medals final summer season within the 4×100 meter relay and 100-meter occasions, respectively.
is the and has taken the basketball world by storm. Clark’s generational expertise has helped . She has her personal Nike signature shoe within the works, because the beforehand reported.
gained the 2024 WNBA Finals with the New York Liberty. The three-time WNBA All-Star and Olympic gold medalist was additionally a No. 1 general choose within the WNBA draft like Clark.
is a two-time Olympian and has gained each gold and silver group medals with the U.S. Olympic ladies’s gymnastics group.
Watkins is a rising star in faculty basketball and is in her sophomore season at USC. She was named the Pac-12 Freshman of the Yr.
Putellas is a Spanish soccer participant for Barcelona. She is the primary two-time Ballon d’Or Féminin winner and the primary participant to win , in line with .
Sophia Wilson is a standout ahead within the NWSL and for the U.S. ladies’s nationwide soccer group. She’s a former NWSL MVP and final summer season, helped lead the U.S. ladies to their first Olympic gold medal in 12 years.
Sabalenka is the WTA’s No. 1 ladies’s singles tennis participant on the earth — a feat Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Naomi Osaka have by no means gained, per the .
A’ja Wilson is a two-time WNBA champion, three-time WNBA MVP and six-time WNBA All-Star. She launched her first Nike signature shoe, , final week.
The controversy behind Nike’s Tremendous Bowl advert
Not everybody was a fan of the brand new Nike Tremendous Bowl advert.
Some critics questioned how the industrial match with the corporate’s previous therapy of pregnant ladies athletes.
In 2019, Olympian Allyson Felix shared in a piece that Nike “wished to pay me 70 % lower than earlier than” in negotiations to resume her contract following her first being pregnant.
Felix mentioned she’d settle for it if that’s what the corporate thought she was value on the time however wouldn’t settle for “the enduring established order round maternity.”
“I requested Nike to contractually assure that I wouldn’t be punished if I didn’t carry out at my finest within the months surrounding childbirth. I wished to set a brand new customary. If I, certainly one of Nike’s most generally marketed athletes, couldn’t safe these protections, who might?” she wrote.
Nike declined, Felix mentioned, main the monitor star to signal with Athleta.
Simone Biles has additionally left Nike for Athleta, telling The in 2021, “I felt prefer it wasn’t nearly my achievements, it’s what I stood for and the way they have been going to assist me use my voice and in addition be a voice for females and children.”
Controversial Nike advert from the previous
This yr’s advert isn’t the primary Nike Tremendous Bowl advert to trigger a stir.
The corporate’s final Tremendous Bowl advert in 1998 featured athletes within the nude, together with basketball gamers David Robinson and Lisa Leslie, Olympians Michael Johnson and Suzy Hamilton and soccer star Ronaldo.
The industrial was attempting to painting Nike attire as “an added layer of pores and skin that may assist individuals compete extra successfully in a variety of sports activities,” The reported on the time.
“Artful digicam angles do the work of shorts and halters and shield the athletes from embarrassing publicity,” the AP famous.
Nike needed to make “minor modifications within the industrial, involving shading,” for the advert to air on NBC, the community airing the Tremendous Bowl.
Right here’s how social media reacted
The response to Nike’s Tremendous Bowl advert in 2025 was blended on social media.
The industrial drew reward from some, together with Maria Shriver, but in addition criticism, together with from former “Sunday Evening Soccer” sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.
Listed here are a few of the reactions on social media to Nike’s 2025 Tremendous Bowl advert.
THAT.NIKE.AD.WAS.AWESOME.
Oh my god
That Nike advert is the Superbowl’s finest industrial up to now, and in addition occurred to characteristic an ideal mantra for ladies in sports activities.
“You possibly can’t win. So win.”
Precisely!
Nike has an in depth historical past of treating their feminine athletes horrifically, together with punishing them after they get pregnant + turning a blind eye to feminine athletes getting abused.
Nike doing a Tremendous Bowl advert centered round feminine athletes is MASSIVE and simply says a lot concerning the second we’re in. I do not assume one thing like that might’ve occurred ten and even 5 years in the past.
I feel it is completely unimaginable that Nike’s first advert in 27 years for the Superbowl is concentrated solely on feminine athletes.
I do not even actually care concerning the Superbowl anymore, I am most excited for that advert and Kendrick 😂.
