Devin Booker’s latest Nike style is a collaboration with Chevrolet that channels his love for his three 1972 Chevrolet Blazers into new colorways of his signature Book 1 silhouette and the iconic Blazer Low.
I’ve been contemplating revisiting the lack of promotion in sneakers around older demographics. 7 years ago, I wrote about the shifting demographics of sneaker culture. I explained how Nike, Jordan Brand and other companies were overlooking the foundational aspects of sneaker culture and how this would come back to bite all of them:
Devin’s latest Nike style is a collaboration with Chevrolet that channels his love for his three 1972 Chevrolet Blazers into new colorways of his signature Book 1 silhouette and the iconic Blazer Low.
Each of the three footwear offerings pair with Nike x Chevrolet T-shirts that picture the Phoenix Mountains alongside one of Devin’s personal Chevrolet Blazers.
Sneaker Collecting has become trendy, but trends fade. Sneaker companies placed and continue to place a heavy emphasis on temporary connections with consumers who didn’t enter sneakers via moments. Today’s sneaker consumers are scroll and flick, hot and cold, part-time lovers of the culture.
As a generalization, younger potential fans can’t list their favorite sneakers because they don’t care about kicks in that way. They only care about the shoes as they relate to fashion, or they wear what’s available without consideration for anything at all. While this is good for smaller brands who welcome these temporary visits, for a company like Nike that has long relied on moments to create momentum, it hurts the brand creating the current situation where Nike is fighting for attention.
Car culture and sneaker culture aren’t exactly aligned, but the same generation capable of falling in love with Devin Booker’s old school rides, are the same people who know why the love retro Jordans and Air Force 1s. They are the guys consider OGs, Old Heads or Uncs. Nike’s decision to connect classic Chevys, D-Book and the Nike Blazer could resonate with the small segment and demographic, but Nike is possibly failing to make the right connections.
For example, I took the following pictures because my son is like me. He has a big collection of sneakers, and he loves cars. He doesn’t really know everything about kicks and this is my point, he isn’t really an athlete and doesn’t look at ESPN. His biggest sports moment was coming home from college and running track with my club team last year. He won a silver medal in one event. He and his friends are more into seeking out abandoned places throughout Florida. He doesn’t really have a sneaker highlight, but he’s in the demo Nike is constantly barraging with content.
My son is in school in Miami and there are small things I can do to retain my connection with him. We both take pics of cars and send them to each other. The pictures below were snapped when we were about to walk into a Red Robin, to take advantage of bottomless fries and cheap burger night. I saw one Chevy Corvette, then another, then another and as my wife began to notice them, we realized we had walked into a nighttime meet-up of a Corvette Club.
We didn’t get to eat at Red Robin that night because the restaurant was filled with old heads taking up every booth. Nike is currently going through every process to regain momentum and this very limited in scope Book x Chevy collection won’t do much for the Swoosh’s bottom line and it may not sell through (unless it’s so limited it becomes resale fodder). Nike is missing an understanding of its own market. There wasn’t one young guy in those Corvettes and young guys don’t rock Nike Blazers. I wear Nike Blazers, and I guarantee every one of those old heads in Red Robin would pick up a pair of the Chevy Nike Blazers. This is how I know, my YouTube isn’t big enough for Nike to sponsor me or invite me to work with them. They tend to like people who are loud and have a massive number of followers. That makes sense, but those people don’t land with certain demographics. I have a series of videos I call “OG, Old Head and Unc Approved”. In the following picture are my top viewed videos over the last 28 days. I have one row highlighted:
The Jordan Flight Court had 1,576 views with people staying for 28.6% of the video. I posted the video on March 13th, 2025. It’s had over 1,600 views and 12 comments, all positive. By comparison, the most popular sneaker YouTube channel reviewing them has over 50,000 views and 229 comments, most of them negative or they don’t have anything at all to do with the sneaker in the video. That video was released over 3 months ago. My few comments only 6 were from viewers, I responded to each person which made 12 total, every person bought a pair. In the last 48 hours the video was watched another 87 times.
Car Shows, Kicks, Food, Feeling Fly is not relegated to youth culture. Brands are failing to understand the aging up of their fans. Nike and sneaker culture are the same age. Today’s Uncs, OGs, and Old Heads, are not wearing suits like their fathers. They are collecting kicks and fixing their whips to cruise and recapture time on the weekends. Nike made a collection for those guys, and they should be connecting with them, but the forgotten demographic is slowly buying for comfort because we can’t see ourselves. Nike better pay attention.