If we want to use sports analogies we don't have to use Nike and Adidas as stand-ins, golf is undergoing this right now, between the PGA and LIV tournaments, and members with exclusivity clauses in their contracts.
It'd be more like if Lichess were funded by Nazi gold or something, and the person funding it was trying to do so because they want you to forget they stole a ton of Nazi gold.
PGA isn't behaving this way for moral reasons, but it's an extra component to that situation which makes this harder to analogize.