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Athletes and fans have some advice for Nike: Just redo it. The operative "it" in this case being the new uniforms that the sportswear giant designed for the U.S. Olympic women's track and field team, as well as the uniforms Nike designed for all Major League Baseball teams.

Athletes, fans, and advocates alike have spent months on social media booing the see-through fabric and sweat-stained patches on their favorite MLB players, prompting the MLB to on Sunday announce that it would "address" the issues with the new uniforms, ESPN reported.

Meanwhile, revealing cuts on some parts of the Olympic women's track uniforms have also garnered fairly negative reactions. One U.S. Olympian, Tara Davis-Woodhall, summed up the predicament pretty succinctly with a comment on an Instagram post by Citius Mag that featured the first photos of the new duds: "Wait, my hoo haa is gonna be out."

So what happened to the brand whose very name is borrowed from the goddess of victory? How did it fall so far? This is a company whose marketing and products are icons of athletic apparel and footwear, to the point multiple movies have been made about its marketing strategies. Few companies are so much a part of the cultural conversation--a status that comes through global success. Why are words like "fiasco" and "debacle" and "fail" coming up in searches about Nike uniforms?

While Nike did not respond to emails sent by Inc. regarding the MLB and Team USA uniform controversies, nor did it address MLB's decision to revamp its uniforms, no later than the 2025 season, it's worth taking a step back to understand how a company that's a global leader in the $85 billion activewear industry, and a dominant player in the $11.4 billion licensed team apparel market stumbled so spectacularly.

Entrepreneurs love Nike's origin story, going back to when University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman and student athlete Phil Knight took a waffle iron to the soles of the team's running shoes in the mid-1970s, eventually creating a global sportswear juggernaut. It's a company that knows a thing or two about marketing--that's evidenced by the 2023 Ben Affleck feature film "Air," about Nike's 1984 pursuit of basketball superstar Michael Jordan as the face of its basketball shoe brand.

But the recent uniform missteps--and a lack of public contrition--should have Nike fans pondering a few questions about the seamy processes that resulted in such roundly ridiculed elite-level performance wear.

Were the industry leader's missteps due to sexism? Poor communication with business partners? Arrogance? Remote work?

Probably all of the above.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Nike CEO John Donahoe said remote work was a major factor in the company's relative lack of new products. Less directly, he also raised a great point about how to make important business decisions:

"What's been missing is the kind of bold, disruptive innovation that Nike's........

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