I agree Knight wouldn’t do something like that, but billionaires are the exact people who would go out of their way making a bad business move just to prove a point lol. It’s like the best thing about being a billionaire - making money can become almost secondary. If someone ****ed you off you have FU money to do do something lol, and harming normal ppl $100k is more impactful to them than harming you a couple million.
You're confusing billionaires with "Trump" mentality. And while I won't speak for every billionaire, the ones who made their money selling to the MASSES are not usually the ones who let small grievances get in the way of continuing to make more money.
Again, let's review reality. First, Phil Knight made Miami the FIRST Nike school ever. The first. So there is a personal motivation to bring Miami back for that reason alone.
Second, add to that Nike's pursuit of "traditional" adidas programs, such as the German national soccer team. It should be obvious to anyone that there is more of a "trophy" factor to collecting top programs that FAR outweighs any short-term "hurt feelings" that people not named Phil Knight have invented. Phil Knight wants to beat adidas, not some Cuban coach who returned to his alma mater in South Florida and laid the foundation for Oregon to win 35 games in the past 3 years.
Third, I'm quite certain that when Phil Knight hired Mario, he always knew that there was ONE JOB that could draw Mario away. This is NOT like Willie Taggart leaving for F$U after ONE YEAR, when Willie Taggart is a Western Kentucky alum (his jersey is retired) and had spent the majority of his career, over 10 years, coaching at Western Kentucky.
Finally, Oregon has not missed a beat since Mario left. Instead of having to hire a coach off Taggart's staff when Taggart left, Oregon was able to attract a top candidate from the other side of the country when Mario left. In his first year, Lanning equaled the 10-wins Mario had in 2021, and then Lanning went on to win 12 games in 2022 and 13 games in 2023.
This concept that Phil Knight is angry or offended, to the point where he will prevent Nike from re-attaining Miami, is absurd. And not based in reality, since
@Rellyrell has stated that Nike is interested and discussing the parameters of a substantial offer to Miami.