Nike's newest spot highlights women's athletics

Nike has another tearjerker on its hands.

The latest addition to the brand’s “Just Do It” campaign, the spot, "Dream with Us," focuses on the U.S. women’s national soccer team and launches during Sunday’s NBA playoffs.

In it, young female athletes from different sports walk out of locker rooms, and stadium tunnel in support of the soccer team. As the players get to the field, narrator Viola Davis says, “The craziest dream of all is the one that starts a million more.”

The spot features prominent athletes including Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, WNBA player Elena Delle Donne and 13-year-old professional soccer play Olivia Moultrie.

Earlier this year, Serena Williams voiced an ad challenging dismissive stereotypes of female athletes in a spot called “Dream Crazier.”

"If they want to call you crazy, fine,” Williams says. “Show them what crazy can do.”

But Nike’s most memorable spot in the past year was “Dream Crazy,” featuring Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers player who chose to kneel during NFL games to protest police brutality and racism in the U.S.

The ad sparked controversy and an attempted boycott of Nike, but ended up being a fruitful move for the brand. Online sales jumped 31 percent in the three days following the spot’s release, and the company’s share prices increased 18 percent in 2018.

Portland-based Wieden & Kennedy came up with the game-changing spot, and topped Ad Age’s Agency A-List for the second straight year. And Nike was named Ad Age’s 2018 Marketer of the Year.

The U.S. women’s national team made similar waves this year when 28 of its members sued the sport’s governing body for gender discrimination.

The latest ad will roll out on TV and Nike’s social media accounts Sunday. Out-of-home ads were placed in the lead-up to the spot’s TV debut.