A shoe to kill for: A brief history of the Air Jordan, the perfect mix of footwear and marketing that changed the sport
Two days have been enough for the Air Jordan 6 Carmine, the latest model from one of Nike's most famous and desired lines, to sell out on its website. The proof that these shoes go beyond the condition of sports shoes and become a cult object. How did it happen? The story has as much to do with sport as with the mystique of a character who, for decades, has drawn millions of followers. And of dollars.
But it was not always like this. Before 1984, the world of basketball shoes was a bore. The NBA was about to become a major event, but what surrounded those gigantic feet that supported it was a toston. All the stars wore Converse, and only the color of their franchise varied: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Julius Erving… Even Nike, which had hit the mark with the Nike Blazer – the ones worn by George “The Iceman” Gervin in the Portlands – had entered in the most absolute atony.
And yet, everyone saw that this sport was a business opportunity. The African-American middle class was growing, their favorite sport was basketball and Nike, which did not have exactly buoyant accounts, wanted to wear it. But he didn't know how. The Oregon brand was far removed from the track and field tartan where it had become popular and which Reebok now dominated. In addition, it was considered a brand for white boys.
Unable to associate with established stars, one of Nike's executives, Sonny Vaccaro, had an idea. He had to bet on players who were not yet professionals. For example, by that boy from the University of North Carolina who fascinated him. His name was Michael Jordan and everything indicated that he would join the NBA in positions of honor. Vaccaro was blunt: "Give everything to the boy", remember that he told Nike in the recent documentary One Man and His Shoes (A man and his shoes, directed by Yemi Bamiro and which will soon arrive on Movistar). Nothing to spend it on two or three players. He had to bet 100% of the budget of the Nike basketball department on that number 23 who had never played an NBA game.
Michael Jordan's representative, David Falk, agreed, but he was much more ambitious than Vaccaro: “I told the company that, as crazy as it sounds, I wanted them to treat Michael as if he were a tennis player. I wanted him to have his own shoe and clothing line, to star in commercials, to be treated like individual sports stars,” he confesses in the documentary. He wanted his agent to have the status of Jimmy Connors, of Stan Smith, of Arthur Ashe, as opposed to how he traded with professional team sports. Nike accepted the bet. Five years at a two and a half million dollar contract for someone who had not debuted. He set the conditions for him, yes: he had to be Rookie of the year, All-Star and plug 20 points per game in his first three years. With such an amount, he also promised what seemed like a small thing at the time: a percentage of the sale of each pair of his sneakers.
There was just one little problem. Michael Jordan, oddly enough, did not want to see his name next to Nike. His favorite brand, the one he wore and wore and the one he wanted to work with, was Adidas. But the signature of the three stripes or he did not want or could not dedicate himself to basketball. Chapter 5 of the Netflix / ESPN series The Last Dance recounts the reluctance of 23 to meet with the Oregon firm... and how he had to change his mind after his mother threatened him with the infallible tactic of any mother: throw the head shoe.
Falk, Vaccaro, and his parents reluctantly convinced him. Designer Peter Moore set about creating the Air Jordan I, nicknamed "Bred." To the surprise of many – and concern of Nike – Jordan was not number one in the draft (since Hakeem Olajuwon obtained), nor even number two (for Sam Bowie, one of the great fiascos of the hoop). He was third and ended up with the Chicago Bulls. A team without history, without rings and, like Nike, with serious financial problems. There went the 23 and his Air Jordan I shoes. They were black and red.
Moore played Jump by The Pointer Sisters to show them off. But not even the music calmed down a Michael Jordan who hated them. When Nike asked him why, he replied that because "they had the colors of the devil." “But they are the colors of your team!” Moore replied. He wasn't the only one who hated them: David Stern, the NBA commissioner, the most powerful man in the business, didn't like them either. The shoes had to be white, like the rest. At least 51%. This was made known to Nike a month and a half before Jordan wore them, under threat of a $5,000 fine each time he disobeyed.
@thelastbashtion Yeah, I got emetophobia and my parents really didn't know how to deal with it. My mums answer to m… https://t.co/6C97DbbICw
— Rebecca Burgess Thu Jul 30 07:50:43 +0000 2020
Honey on flakes for the Nike marketing department. The firm and the player would comply with the rules, but… the announcement unleashed a madness among buyers, desperate to put on the prohibited shoes. And even more so after Jordan wore them in the 1985 dunk contest, a holiday in which the rules could be broken, the day the planet discovered that Jordan was half man, half airline.
The Air Jordans went on sale on April 1. Nike forecasts were to earn 3 million dollars during the five years of the contract. In the first year they had already added 126. From there, of course, Jordan's substantial percentage was subtracted, which, according to some, accounted for 25 percent of each pair. And they didn't sell more because they didn't want to: they decided to offer less than what was demanded to fuel desire. The gear was in gear. Sales were flying and a player was flying who was going to dominate the NBA. Every season, a new shoe. A new obsession.
The Air Jodan II arrived (twice as expensive and the first without the unmistakable Nike logo on the side) and then the Air Jordan III (the first decorated with the Jumpman silhouette, that is, Jordan flying through the Chicago sky) . It was 1987, and by now the sneakers had already become an icon. But the icing was missing. It was necessary to connect the field and the street, the athlete with the neighborhood. Jim Riswold of the Wieden + Kennedy ad agency saw a movie called Nola Darling that he directed, wrote, and starred a charismatic New Yorker named Spike Lee. Riswold was fascinated by one of the characters, Mars Blackmon: in his oversized glasses, his shorts, his baggy sportswear, he was an urban version of Steve Urkel. A weird guy who, when he finally gets to sleep with Nola, the girl of his dreams, does it without taking off his Air Jordans.
The Air Jordan television commercials, directed by and starring Spike Lee himself, continue to be some of the best advertising has ever done. Far from the image of sweat and overcoming sports commercials, Lee and Jordan were a kind of dynamic duo in which the director's theatricality was able to bring out all the player's comedic vis.
However, this success story would not be complete without its dark side. “Shoes or life”, was the title of Sports Illustrated magazine's cover in May 1990. The Air Jordans shared the page with a revolver. The report, signed by Rick Telander, recounted how the greed to get hold of the most famous sneakers in the US had pushed many young people to acts of extreme violence, which even included murder. Specifically, fifteen-year-old Michael Eugene Thomas. As has often happened in his life, especially on political issues, Jordan was accused of ominous silence.
Today, that operation that changed the history of the sport is still the most profitable ever signed by a basketball player and, probably, of any other sports discipline. To give an example, it is estimated that LeBron James, the man who chases the impossible shadow of MJ, earns 32 million dollars for his sneaker model and Michael Jordan, 130. Four times more. More than 32 models later, thanks to Air Jordan, Nike has absorbed Converse, its old rival, and has turned the line into an independent franchise. That's Michael Jordan: a sports giant with feet of gold.
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