Nike has decided to pull their “Boston Massacre” T-shirts in the wake of last week’s Boston Marathon bombings.
The shirts are old and unrelated to the bombings, but the company realized they do not reflect well given the context of recent events.
“The shirts being referenced are older baseball shirts that were predominantly being sold through our factory store outlets,” Nike spokesman KeJuan Wilkins said Monday, via ESPN’s Darren Rovell. “In light of the tragedy in Boston, we took immediate action last week to remove this product from distribution.”
Per Rovell, the shirts are being removed from outlet stores and online outlets.
The shirts are navy blue and have blood splattered over white lettering that says Boston. The term “Boston Massacre” is a play on to the historical 1770 incident that is also used to describe the Yankees’ late-season sweeps of the Sox in 1978 and 2006 that contributed to the Sox missing the playoffs.
Nike may have decided to act after Eric Stangel, a producer/writer for “Late Show with David Letterman” tweeted a picture of the shirt which he came across at a Nike outlet.
“We’ve been taking them down. But somehow they keep ending up back on the rack,” a store employee told him.
Even though the shirts have nothing to do with the bombings, it’s good thinking by Nike to remove the shirts. The company also had a recent ad campaign backfire when Oscar Pistorius was charged with murder.
