With soaring rhetoric and swelling music, Nike debuted its first Super Bowl ad in more than a quarter of a century, but its tone—at least in the minds of some top-tier female athletes—fell flat.
The one-minute Nike commercial, “So Win,” was the company’s first foray into the Super Bowl ad space in 27 years. The ad’s apparent goal was to celebrate women’s sports, but the tenor seemed tone deaf to the debate raging today over transgender-identified men competing alongside women.
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Nike’s commercial addressed perceived prejudices female athletes face—over the kinds of emotions society accepts from them, over their athletic prowess, and over the crowd sizes they attract.
The ad includes phrases like, “You can’t flex, so flex,” “You can’t fill a stadium, so fill a stadium,” “You can’t be emotional, so be emotional,” and, ultimately, “You can’t win, so win.”
Those concerns—as relevant as they may once have been—pale in comparison to the transgenderism creeping its way into women’s sports, according to athletes who participated in a Nike response video produced by XX-XY Athletics, an apparel brand with the goal of supporting women’s sports and keeping males from competing on female teams.
The video from XX-XY features appearances by athletes sidelined for speaking out against transgender participation in athletics.
One of the participants, Canadian powerlifter April Hutchinson, suspended for two years for speaking out against a transgender-identified man entering Canadian Powerlifting Union competitions in women’s categories, said in the video, “I’ve never been told that I can’t flex or can’t do this or that.”
University of Nevada women’s volleyball captain Sia Liilii, who spoke out against her school’s decision to compete against a transgender-identified male, called out Nike for failing to address the issue of the day.
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Reprinted with permission from faithwire.com. Copyright © 2025 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.
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