I thought I finally understood the extent of Nike’s relationship with Michigan last month, when the school’s women’s water polo team came to Evanston for the Big Ten championships.

Fifteen girls and two coaches walked into Norris Aquatics Center looking like they had sold their souls to the swoosh. Even though they were members of a club team, Nike’s logo was everywhere, from the girls’ swim caps and flip-flops to the towels and the coaches’ clipboards.

But now I read that Nike will not renew its contract with Michigan. I see a Nike official asking “Do we really need Michigan?” and I don’t understand anything at all anymore.

Need Michigan? Our Big Ten brother in Ann Arbor has been one of Nike’s signature schools for the past six years. You couldn’t walk into Niketown on Michigan Avenue without spying a Wolverines football or basketball jersey hanging from the racks.

Six years ago, Nike and Michigan formed one of the first partnerships in which a shoe company pays to outfit an entire university’s teams. A similar contract has made Northwestern’s squads walking advertisements for adidas.

But one detail in the new contract between Nike and Michigan apparently will leave the school’s teams swoosh-less come Aug. 31. That’s the day the present six-year contract expires and three days before the Wolverines’ first football game.

For the past five months, the school and shoe colossus had been working on a contract in which Nike would re-up with Michigan for six years and between $22 million to $26 million — the largest deal ever in college sports.

However, with the contract on what Michigan’s negotiator called “the five-yard line,” the university asked Nike to include provisions in the deal pertaining to its overseas factories. That was because Michigan wanted to support the Worker Rights Consortium, a student-led, anti-sweatshop group that wants colleges to oversee the conditions and wages in factories that make their apparel.

That’s when Nike reportedly balked.

So the company, which operates factories in Southeast Asia and Central America, killed the deal two weeks ago — moving from forming an unprecedented contract with Michigan to dropping the school altogether.

“We thought the contract was ready to be executed except for some minor negotiations,” Bill Martin, Michigan’s interim athletic director told the Detroit Free-Press.

“It’s a shame Nike has chosen to intimidate institutions that are trying to act responsibly. We had an understanding and we think they breached that responsibility.”

Nike chief Phil Knight acted more harshly when his alma mater, Oregon, joined the consortium. After giving Oregon $20 million over the past 10 years and promising between $30 million to $50 million more for renovations to its football stadium, Knight said he would give no more to the school.

In addition, Nike stopped outfitting Brown’s men’s and women’s hockey teams in April after the university joined the consortium.

But aside from showing who’s in charge, Nike’s recent decisions make little sense. Unless, of course, it wanted to give Michigan’s athletic department a rare dose of good publicity.

It wasn’t the shrewdest move on Nike’s part to dump Michigan, one of its most visible schools. The company was already suffering —according to Nike’s quarterly report released in April, the company’s U.S. apparel sales declined by 11 percent in the past year. As a barometer, Nike’s stock is presently worth two dollars less than it was four years ago today.

Even so, the decision wasn’t about the money. Nike signed a $22 million contract with Texas last year and recently inked another large deal with Michigan State. Altogether six Big Ten schools, not counting Michigan, are outfitted by Nike.

And the decision opened the door to Nike’s competitors. Puma, adidas and Reebok all reportedly contacted Michigan within a day of Nike’s announcement. All are itching to lure the maize-and-blue their way and gain a major foothold in college athletics.

When they do, the final question left for a company with the slogan, “Just Do It,” will be, “Why’d they do it?”