Colorado Sports Store Owner Who Boycotted Nike Now Closing Up Shop
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS Denver) - A sporting goods store owner in Colorado Springs decided to close up shop months after he started boycotting Nike products. In September, Stephen Martin, owner of Prime Time Sports, took issue with a Nike advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick.
The former NFL quarterback started kneeling during the National Anthem before football games in 2016, sparking a movement among other NFL players, including Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall.
That in turn sparked large outcry from thousands like Martin.
In 2018, Nike chose to feature Kaepernick in one of its ads.
Martin then decided to sell all of his Nike product at highly-discounted prices, despite him acknowledging Nike merchandise makes up 40-50 percent of the store's inventory.
Fast forward five months.
"Being a sports store and not having Nike jerseys is kind of like being a milk store without milk or a gas station without gas. They have a virtual monopoly on jerseys. There is no other option," Martin told the CBS affiliate in Colorado Springs, KKTV.
PRIME TIME SPORTS is closing. All merchandise 40% OFF. Thank You for 21 mostly good years.For everybody that has...
Posted by Stephen Kurtis Martin on Monday, February 11, 2019
He added the Christmas shopping season helped, but not enough.
Martin says he hopes the wall of military heroes he displayed the outside of his store is what he's remembered for.