Couldn't he sell Sketchers or New Balance? Plenty of people don't sell Nike.
You really don't get the point of the story, do you? It's not about what brand of shoes he sells. It's about his customer's response to his political stand to not sell Nike. He could have probably gotten away with just removing them from his shelves, but he insisted on making a big announcement about it. His customers responded by not going into his store. Looks like more people support Kaepernick and NIKE than you thought. He lost his store because of his goofy behavior. Good.
I didn't see anything in the article about a big announcement or customers responding to his political stance. He stopped selling Nike, one of the biggest brands in sports paraphernalia with contracts with major sports organizations, and his sales tanked.
"He had a clearance sale for Nike merchandise last year. I would consider that to be an announcement.
The owner himself said
from the link
“As much as I hate to admit this, perhaps there are more Brandon Marshall and Colin Kaepernick supporters out there than I realized,” Martin said.
So any time I see a clearance sale, I should assume that the store is doing it for some sort of politically motivated reason?
The statement from the owner that you quoted comes at the end of the article, when it is speaking about him cancelling an event with Brandon Marshall. There isn't enough context to know whether it was even related to the store closing or if it's just being used to imply such a connection because it makes for a more interesting story.
The owner also said this from the link: "Being a sports store without Nike is kind of like being a milk store without milk or a gas station without gas."
Customers may not have even been aware of the owner's stance on Kaepernick.
