Phil Knight Is Using His Nike Fortune to Make Oregon a Football Powerhouse

About a half-hour before the 4:30 p.m. kickoff, Phil Knight carefully steps out of the passenger side of a golf cart that’s dropped him off at Autzen Stadium. An elevator takes him from the concourse to his suite, where he gets ready to see the University of Oregon Ducks take on their archrivals, the University of Washington Huskies, in a late-November finale to the regular season. Oregon President John Karl Scholz, who often pops into Knight’s suite for matchups, says: “You don’t talk to him when the game is going. He’s really, really focused on what is happening on the playing field.”

Outside Autzen, a tailgate rages. In the inner lots, big donors and trustees grill scallops. In the outer lots, rowdy fans shotgun beers, smoke joints and mix drinks in red cups. Regardless of how fancy their parties are, everyone is a beneficiary of Knight’s. The 86-year-old Nike Inc. co-founder is the school’s wealthiest alum and greatest benefactor. Until 2013, in fact, fans had to ascend a steep hill to get to the stadium—but then Knight spent $5 million to regrade berms and replace ramps to make entering and exiting smoother. (Knight’s suite is from a previous face-lift, a $90 million project he helped fund that added about 12,000 seats and a set of luxury boxes in 2002.) Logan Johnston, a 36-year-old Oregon fan who’s gone to games since he was a kid, says it’s “easy to get in and out. People can tailgate right till [kickoff] and know that they’re not going to be waiting in long lines.”