•The public has inferred various motives behind Nike’s CSA efforts, resulting in polarized word-of-mouth intentions about Nike’s stance on a socio-political issue.•Public approval of the politicization of sports moderates the relationship between individuals’ attitudes toward the company and word-of-mouth intentions.•Study results suggest a possibility that there may be differences between how individuals evaluate motives in the context of CSR vs. CSA. This study applies arguments from attribution theory to examine the role of perceived motives (values-driven, egoistic-driven, strategic-driven, and stakeholder-driven motives) in developing individuals’ attitudes, positive word-of-mouth (PWOM), and negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) intentions in response to Nike’s 30th Anniversary ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. This study also examines how perceptions of the appropriateness of the politicization of sports moderate these relationships, as well as individual factors that predict people’s assessments of sports as a politicized event. A survey (N = 373) was conducted to examine how much people’s perceptions of Nike’s motives for engaging in Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA) guided their responses and the degree to which they were likely to engage in actions. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.