That's what I did. I tried to move my career forward at Nike for years but there were too many friends, in-laws, and a—kissers ahead of me. In the end, I gave up and decided to switch companies three years ago and I couldn't be happier. I'm finally at a place that values merit over sycophancy. I still check this page occasionally since plenty of my friends still work at Nike, and it breaks my heart to see so little has changed. All I can tell you is that there are better options out there.
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I left two years ago after experiencing an abusive work environment. Hard to imagine from what I’ve read that it has gotten worse.
If you are an honest and kind person do yourself a solid and leave. Very few ethical managers at Nike these days.
When I was interviewing at Nike many years ago, I was blessed to have a hiring manager that told the truth. He said Nike was like high school with the cool kids, rich kids, jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, etc. He said that if you are not in the cool group, no matter how qualified and hard working you are, you will not advance. Nike is not a meritocracy and "coaching for excellence" is a joke. If you can find a team that you enjoy, you can survive and have some fun. But you will always see unfairness with promotions and raises. This is true at many companies because politics and nepotism exists everywhere, but is especially egregious at Nike. I have seen so many examples of people jumping into director or senior director roles without any of the requisite academic or experience qualifications because they knew the right person or were the right demographic, while others that were clearly better candidates get passed over time and again. At the end of the day, those people had to move on to other companies to get the advancement and recognition they deserved.
It's too bad if you love the Nike brand and are excellent at your job, but can't get ahead here. It's not fair. But if you leave, it will be Nike's loss and another company's gain. Just like the OP said.