Given the significant financial power that a retailer and sponsor like Nike can have in the sports world, does it have any obligation to use that power to do good in connection with its particular industry? A 2006 New York Times article23 suggested that “more than television packages, more than attendance at the gate, track and field is driven by shoe company dough. Nike could, if it chose, threaten to pull its financial support from the coaches and trainers of athletes who are barred for doping violations. For years, the caretakers of the athletes have also been suspected as the doping pushers. Curiously, Nike hasn’t fallen in line with everyone else calling for strict liability among coaches, trainers and athletes.”

The article instead suggests that Nike does not benefit when a star falls from glory so it tends to shy away from this area of oversight. In fact, it goes so far as to say that “Nike is the doping society’s enabler.” Can you make the argument that Nike has an obligation to intervene? Or, if you do not agree with an argument for its responsibility to do good, could you instead make an economic argument in favor of intervention?