And Fogdog offered Nike a portion of its stock just before the public offering.

And its imprimatur may cast a favorable light on Fogdog, a three-year-old company with less than $10 million in annual sales.

Fogdog said it would maintain its policy of not discounting products below the manufacturers' suggested minimums.

Now it's getting easier, he said, but Nike, which is opening its own on-line store, still won't sell directly to Fogdog.

Moreover, Nike judged that Fogdog was becoming the leading on-line company in the category.

As part of the deal, Nike will get warrants to acquire 12 percent of Fogdog's shares.

"A lot of people were showing us business plans, but Fogdog was out there executing for three years," Ms. Buckley said.

"Nike is the 800-pound gorilla in the industry," said Timothy Harrington, Fogdog's chief executive.

Michael Rubin, the chief executive of Global Sports, said he thought Fogdog's strategy was flawed and risky.

By contrast, he said FogDog had tepid results advertising on Time Warner's cnnsi.com sports site.

But Nike extracted a high price for the right to buy its shoes: Warrants to acquire 12 percent of Fogdog's shares.

In the late 1990s, he joined Fogdog Sports as the Director of Sales and Business Development.

In October 2000, Global Sports bought Fogdog for $38.4 million in stock, mostly to retain its well-regarded technology team.

It will keep the Fogdog Web site running but will eliminate most of Fogdog's marketing programs.

Yet, as I examined the "enhanced view" of the blue, rubbery bosu at Fogdog Sports, conflicting emotions welled up.

But there are many competitors looming, from manufacturers like Nike, which will open a big Internet store in June, to Internet-only stores like Fogdog.

"When I first started, I had to put the kneepads on and grovel to get manufacturers to sell to me," Mr. Harrington of Fogdog said.

"With this we'll go head to head with Fogdog," another Internet sporting goods site, Mr. Byrne said as the items were being posted last month.

Recently, when Fogdog came back to Nike with another of its steady stream of requests to distribute the Nike line, Nike was intrigued.

For example, America Online's staff helped FogDog find new customers with a promotion offering certain items for $1 - a pitch that was displayed on the service's welcome screen.

Under the terms of the deal, Fogdog shareholders would receive 0.135 share of Global Sports common stock for each of their shares in Fogdog.

It sells a kind of scrip that is the equivalent of a gift certificate for customers to use instantly with its Internet merchant partners, including Fogdog Sports and Babystyle.com.

"Negotiating a deal was difficult and expensive, and there were several changes of strategy on the fly," said Tim Harrington, the chief executive of FogDog Sports, another anchor tenant in the shopping channel.

Global Sports executives also said Fogdog's technology team would help improve the company's existing technology, and analysts said it would help the company add new partners more quickly and perhaps expand into other product categories.

Sports FOGDOG: www.fogdog.com/ - In addition to equipment for the usual sports, Fogdog offers products for cheerleading, fishing, motocross, diving and wrestling.