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'Reebok! A REAL company': Nike trolled after DROPPING launch of Kyrie Irving's Kyrie 8 shoes

Irving's Nike contract termination came after he tweeted about a controversial film deemed antisemitic

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Nike stated on Friday, November 4, that the company has terminated their contract with basketball player Kyrie Irving. The termination came after Irving's apparently antisemitic film recommendation on Twitter that also earned him a minimum five game suspension without pay by Brooklyn Nets. Irving had issued an apology on Thursday, November 3, and claimed full responsibility for his choice to distribute the antisemetic information with his 4.6 million Twitter followers. "While doing research on YHWH, I posted a Documentary that contained some false anti-Semitic statements, narratives, and language that were untrue and offensive to the Jewish Race/Religion, and I take full accountability and responsibly for my actions," he wrote in his apology post.

However, Nike, not taking any chances, still decided to abruptly drop the basketball star — this was something that did not go down well with Irving's supporters on Twitter. The termination of his contract comes along with the cancellation of the line of shoes that Nike was to launch in collaboration with Irving. It was set to be released this month, in November 2022, according to Daily Mail.

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“At Nike, we believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form of antisemitism,” Nike has stated. “To that end, we’ve decided to suspend our relationship with Kyrie Irving effective immediately and will no longer launch the Kyrie 8. We are deeply saddened and disappointed by the situation and its impact on everyone.”

Sports reporter Shams Charania had tweeted the information and the responses have been nothing short of unhappy. Charania’s tweet read, “Nike announces the company is suspending its relationship with Kyrie Irving, effective immediately, and will no longer launch his new Kyrie 8.” One Twitter user commented, “this is insane they doing way too much ong” Another user made his frustrations known, with this tweet: “All because he posted a link to a video, never actually publicly voicing support for *everything* within the video. Meanwhile Anthony Edwards actually posts a video of himself on IG making fun of a group of gay men and nothing happens.”

Another user took a shot at Nike for taking action on Kyrie Irving while they are under fire for human rights violations in their production houses across the world. One user also dropped his ten cents by saying, “I will no longer wear any Nike merchandise. They’ve lost a lifelong fan. I will now be wearing Reeboks! A REAL company.”

One Twitter user was also quick to point out the rumor that Nike wasn’t going to renew their contract with Kyrie anyway because of his uncertain future in the NBA and that this was just a reason to speed up the termination. His tweet reads, “They weren't going to renew his contract BEFORE this. This just sealed the deal.” One other Twitter user also took a shot at Amazon for allowing the making of the movie that Irving shared. “why aren't they cancelling amazon? if the documentary he shared is that bad and hateful? amazon allowing such movie on their platform gotta be anti sematic [sic] too”