Having worked for Nike on ads and in the publishing industry (on branded print content), I am very comfortable saying this is 100% an ad. If it weren’t, it simp

Having worked for Nike on ads and in the publishing industry (on branded print content), I am very comfortable saying this is 100% an ad. If it weren’t, it simply wouldn’t be run, because that would justify future Nike ad $$$ to competing publications so as to not clump too much branding in one outlet, a tell-tale sign of a deal. It takes a unique very scenario for a pub like NYT to just hand something like this to a company like Nike; nothing about this even moves that needle. I am similarly comfortable asserting the rough draft was written by Nike in-house, simply because their people have this stuff falling out of their heads already. NYT leading this would cost multitudes in efficiency.