All About Phil Knight, the Founder and Former CEO of Nike

The Nike founder is portrayed by Ben Affleck in the new sports drama Air

As the founder of one of the largest athletic brands in the world, a published author and a notable philanthropist, Phil Knight has an impressive résumé.

The Nike founder started the company with his former University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman in 1964. Knight has since become among the top 30 wealthiest people in the world with a net worth of over $45 billion as of February 2023, according to Forbes.

In 2016, Knight published his memoir Shoe Dog, which documented not only how Nike grew from its origins as Blue Ribbon Sports to the incredibly successful company it is today, but also personal aspects of Knight's life as it was completely changed following his entrepreneurial success.

Now, one iconic era of Knight's long career at Nike is entering the spotlight: his groundbreaking deal with basketball player Michael Jordan to create one of the company's most successful products, Air Jordans, as chronicled in the movie Air.

Directed by Ben Affleck, who also plays Knight, Air tells the story of the legendary deal, with Matt Damon starring as Sonny Vaccaro, the executive who signed Jordan to Nike, and Viola Davis as Deloris Jordan, the athlete's mother who encouraged him to join.

From his early years at Nike to his personal life, here's everything to know about Phil Knight.

He founded the company with his track coach Bill Bowerman in 1964

Knight first crossed paths with his future partner Bowerman at the University of Oregon. Bowerman coached the school's track and field club, which Knight joined after enrolling at the university in 1957.

After graduating from Oregon and enrolling at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Knight came up with the idea to import high-quality, comfortable running shoes from Japan to sell in America. During a trip to the country, he discovered Tiger brand shoes and signed a deal to distribute them state-side.

When Knight received his first sneaker samples, he sent two pairs to his former coach to get his opinion. Bowerman was immediately sold on the shoes, and offered to become Knight's partner, leading the duo to form Blue Ribbon Sports.

Originally, the pair sold their lighter, more comfortable shoes in person at track meets across the country, with Knight even selling shoes out of the trunk of his car, as he wrote in Shoe Dog. In 1971, Knight and Bowerman rebranded as Nike, named after the Greek goddess of victory, according to Business Insider.

The pair grew their company by being innovative and scrappy, coming up with creative ideas to sell their shoes. One of Knight's early marketing successes involved declaring that "four of the top seven finishers" in the 1972 Olympic marathon wore Nike sneakers, though technically, the gold, silver and bronze finishers were all in Adidas.

He married his wife Penny in 1968

Though Knight found some early success with Blue Ribbon Sports, it wasn't quite enough to quit his day job for the first few years. In addition to keeping up his accounting career, he became an accounting professor at Portland State University, where he first met his future wife, Penelope "Penny" Parks.

The two wed in September 1968 and went on to welcome two children. While the Knights mainly keep a low profile, they're known for their philanthropic efforts, donating billions of dollars to various institutions.

His son died in 2004 in a scuba diving accident

Knight's son Matthew died in 2004 during a diving trip with his friends at a lake east of San Salvador. Matthew was only 34, and Knight spoke about how painful the sudden loss was in both his book and interviews at the time.

The Nike founder shared how he received thousands of letters and emails expressing their condolences, but one stood out to him from a Wall Street analyst who shared he couldn't work for six months after his own son died in an accident, Knight told USA Today in 2015.

"It was really helpful in the sense that I kind of wanted to go to work and I kind of wanted to interact with people, but I couldn't function," Knight said. "And I said, 'Well, that's normal.' It really did take me about six months to function again. And it's something a parent never gets over. They say, 'When do you get over it?' You never get over it. Ever."

He's donated billions to various charities

Knight has previously said that he plans to give away most of his fortune by the end of his life. "By the time, you know, the lives of my children and their kids run out, I will have given most of it to charity," the Nike co-founder told CBS Sunday Morning in 2016.

He primarily donates to his two alma maters, the University of Oregon and Stanford University. Per Oregon Live, between the two schools, the Nike co-founder has donated nearly $2 billion. He has also donated millions to support health care and other causes, primarily in his home state of Oregon.

He was part of Nike's effort to make a deal with Michael Jordan

In the early 1980s, Knight's company was in a rut. The company posted a loss in 1984, and its stocks struggled after going public in 1980. Knight wanted the company to break into the basketball playing ground, and one of his salesmen, Vaccaro, had a vision to make a deal with Jordan, who was just a rookie at the time.

Though Knight was hesitant to see the vision into fruition, Vaccaro convinced him and Rob Strasser, Nike's director of marketing at the time, to take the risk on Jordan — who also needed convincing of his own, as Adidas and Converse were the leading brands at the time.

"We really needed a boost and we thought this young basketball player from North Carolina might be able to help us that way, and his name was Michael Jordan," Knight said in a Fox Business interview in 2016. "He had worn Adidas in his high school games and he liked it, but we came out, we sold him and ultimately he believed in us. And we sold pretty well that day."

While the company aimed to make $3 million in the first three years, Air Jordans exceeded Nike's expectations, making $126 million in the first year alone. The sneakers grew into an entire Jordan brand, with Nike releasing a suite of Air products.

In the four decades since the initial deal that cemented Nike in sneaker history, the shoes have maintained their icon status, with new releases of Air Jordans selling out within minutes. A pair worn by Jordan himself sold for a record $1.47 million in 2021, proving the legacy of the shoe lives on.

The deal would go on to inspire the sports drama Air, which delves into more detail of the history-changing Air Jordans.

He was amused by Ben Affleck's portrayal of him in Air

In a March 2023 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Affleck shared that he flew to Oregon to show Knight the movie before it aired on the big screen. Though he was nervous to see Knight's reaction, the former Nike CEO enjoyed the movie and was "remarkably gracious."

Affleck explained to Kimmel that the goal wasn't to make a documentary, but a comedic take on the negotiations, so the story wouldn't be completely accurate — which Knight pointed out to him.

Overall, however, Affleck said Knight enjoyed the film and was "really moved" by the story. "He seemed to me to be somebody remembering a time in his life that was really like … that period of your life where it's not yet defined, it might not yet have all come together, you're still risking something and you're there with your friends and you're bonded," Affleck told Kimmel. "He seemed really moved by it."

While speaking to PEOPLE about his role, Affleck explained how it felt to play a character as complex as Knight. "The audience doesn't have to be with Phil and necessarily rooting for Phil and investing in Phil," he said. "They just have to believe he's a real and interesting person and somebody who has to be reckoned with by the other characters."

He wrote a book about his life and professional accomplishments

In 2016, Knight released a memoir, Shoe Dog, about his personal life and how he founded Nike. He defined a "shoe dog" as someone who devotes their life to buying, making and selling shoes.

The book touches on the more sensitive aspects of his life, including the loss of his son in 2004. He also shared the background of some of Nike's iconic moments, from the creation of the "swoosh" logo to how the company lost its initial contract with Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Co and rebranded as Nike.

Shoe Dog ultimately made the New York Times' bestsellers list and found success among shoe lovers and aspiring business leaders worldwide.

He is the owner of a stop-motion animation studio

In addition to his career in the athletic industry, Knight found a second passion in Hollywood as the owner of an animation company, Laika Entertainment. After making an initial investment in the company, then known as Will Vinton Studios, Knight purchased it fully and rebranded as Laika in 2003, named after the dog of the same name that was sent by the Soviet Union to space in 1957.

The studio specializes in short films, music videos and feature films using stop-motion animation. The company became a family operation when Knight's son Travis joined as an animator, eventually becoming CEO and president. Based in Oregon, the studio created hit films like Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings. The latter was directed by Travis and was nominated for two Academy Awards.

He stepped down from Nike in 2016

Knight announced he was stepping down as the chairman of Nike in June 2015, and officially retired exactly one year later, according to Forbes.

Knight named Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike, as his successor in the role, though he added he would continue to be involved with the company as chairman emeritus.

"For me, Nike has always been more than just a company — it has been my life's passion," Knight said in a statement at the time. "Over the years, I've spent a great deal of time considering how I might someday evolve my ownership and leadership of Nike in a way that benefits all of our stakeholders."

Following his retirement, Knight still remained the biggest stakeholder in Nike and created Swoosh, a limited liability company that holds the majority of Knight's Nike shares as well as $13.9 billion worth of Nike stock. Swoosh has its own board of directors with five votes, and at the time, Knight held two of them.

In 2016, Knight sold his two votes to his son Travis, who also joined Nike's board of directors, per Forbes.

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