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‘More than just shoes’: how Air Jordans kicked off a revolution in sport

A new film starring Ben Affleck tells the story of how Michael Jordan’s sponsorship deal with Nike in 1984 turned a clever marketing idea into a slam dunk

I n 1984, Nike was in trouble. Growth had stalled, profits were down and a misjudged move into clothing left it with piles of unsold inventory. Rivals had beaten it to new crazes for aerobics and leisure shoes. Sales fell. “Orwell was right,” Phil Knight, who was chairman and chief executive, began his annual letter to shareholders. “1984 was a tough year.”

But Air , a new film set in that same year, opens this week, and shows how Nike went on to become the world’s No 1 shoe and sports brand , a company whose revenue topped £37bn in 2022.

It’s directed by and stars Ben Affleck as Knight in all his shell-suit and mirrored shades-wearing, purple Porsche-driving 80s pomp. Air also stars Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, a Nike sports marketing executive in desperate need of a hit. But the real star of this story is the Air Jordan shoe.

Air tells how, against everyone’s advice, Vaccaro signed a sponsorship deal with the rookie basketball player Michael Jordan , luring him away from more viable rivals Adidas and Converse, by presenting him with his own sneaker – the Air Jordan. Even more controversially, at the behest of Jordan’s formidable mother, Deloris (played in the film by Viola Davis), he gave Jordan points on every pair sold, kicking off a revolution in the way sport and its stars were marketed around the world.

Nike officially released the Air Jordan 1 sneakers to the public on 1 April 1985 at the price of $64.95. It expected to sell 100,000 pairs in the first year. Instead, backed by clever marketing that suggested the NBA had banned the shoes for being too colourful (it hadn’t), it shipped 1.5 million in the first six weeks.

You’d have done well to hang on to a pair. Today, unworn Jordan 1s sell for north of $20,000 (£16,000) on the resale site StockX. The Air Jordan brand sits at the heart of today’s multibillion-pound trainer collecting boom .

Jordan has been called the biggest pop culture hero in American history – someone who transcended not just his sport but race, class and generations. His rise from humble beginnings – a North Carolina boy who didn’t make the grade for his high-school team, the son of a bank employee mother, and a General Electric plant supervisor father, later murdered – made him the embodiment of the American Dream.

Last but very much not least, he was an astonishing athlete – as is obvious even to people with no interest in sport, much less US basketball.

Though Jordan retired for the third and final time in 2003, Nike has continued to introduce new models under his name each year. Today there are 37 Air Jordan styles available, not including countless colourways, collaborations, limited editions and retro Jordans.

In 2020, Netflix broadcast The Last Dance , the 10-part documentary that followed Jordan’s career in compelling detail. Coinciding with twin ramifications of lockdown – a captive audience, and a hunger for comfier clothes – it drew a global audience of 24 million and turbo-boosted interest in its star.

Last year, the Jordan brand made Nike $5.1bn, up 70% from 2020. Based on that figure, its namesake would have pulled in $256.1m from a decades-old licensing deal without lifting a finger, let alone a basketball – more than double the amount from his entire NBA career. Forbes estimates his net worth at $2bn .

It’s not only Nike and Michael Jordan who have benefited – the Air Jordan shoe has changed the market for both vintage and resale trainers and helped cement them as collectibles on a par with the art world.

“ The Last Dance changed our lives,” says Robert Franks, co-founder and chief operating officer of Kick Game, a seller of exclusive, rare and sold-out trainers, with outlets in six of the UK’s biggest cities, plus Milan.

“We went from eight of us to 180 [employees] in a year-and-a-half. We went from £1.9m revenue to £45m last year – £24m of that was Jordan shoes.

“Our customers used to be 80% men. After The Last Dance , we were 50-50. White women started buying Jordans for the first time. Everyday people started buying them, particularly [reissued] Jordan 1s. That shoe appeals to everyone.”

In 2021, Sotheby’s auction house sold the earliest known Jordan/Nike shoes for $1.47m . This week, bidding opens on a pair of signed Air Jordan XIII “The Last Dance” trainers, worn by Jordan during the 1998 NBA finals. Those have an estimate of $2m to $4m, making them highly likely to be the most expensive ever auctioned. (Size 13, if you’re tempted.) “Jordan leads the way for the rest of the streetwear market,” says Brahm Wachter, vice president, head of streetwear and modern collectables, at Sotheby’s. “What helps drive the market is a longing for a certain era. When you think about Michael Jordan in 1985, lacing up his Air Jordan 1s, that gives ‘sneakerheads’ an incredible sense of nostalgia.”

Maybe, but people feel nostalgia for all kinds of things – seldom for that sort of money. To the majority of the population for whom trainers represent nothing more than a comfortable alternative to other shoes, the whole thing can be hard to get your head around.

“In 20 years’ time, it won’t be so much of a conversation,” Wachter says. “It’s very similar to stamps or comics or first-edition books, things that are created in mass that have gained, through time, a certain cultural importance to people, and therefore are valuable.”

Franks says the secondary trainer market has become the largest unregulated industry in the world. “It’s a phenomenal asset class – people are buying them and just holding them,” he says. “Wine, whisky, watches … there’s nothing that has outperformed sneakers in the last three or four years. I don’t see that changing. Sneakers are art now. They’re more than just shoes. And Jordan has led the way.”

But why Jordan particularly? It’s easy to find people who’ll wax lyrical on a once-in-a-generation athlete or riff on various technical innovations across the line: the air bubble on the III, the reflective tongue on the V, the ballistic mesh upper and carbon fibre spring plate on the XI. But even Jordan himself wasn’t particularly enamoured by some designs. For his final game at Madison Square Garden in March 1998 – his favourite place to play, as he says in The Last Dance – he chose to reprise his Jordan 1s. “By half-time, my feet were bleeding.”

Others offer a more pragmatic view. “What drives consumer interest is that, for the most part, Nike limit how many pairs they put in the marketplace,” says the veteran sporting goods and retail industry expert Matt Powell, of the consulting firm Spurwink River.

“It’s about selling out and scarcity, not the popularity of Michael Jordan. The whole key is to keep supply below demand.”

While Air is likely to further inflate the Jordan mythology – in reality, it was Jordan’s agent, David Falk, who brokered the deal, not Nike’s Sonny Vaccaro; and by most accounts it was his father not his mother who persuaded their son to sign – it is tremendous fun.

Made with Jordan and Nike’s endorsement, the film was announced during this year’s Super Bowl in an ad slot that cost $7m.

Like all things Jordan, an appropriately large number.

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• HISTORY & CULTURE

How sneaker culture took over the world

As depicted in the new Ben Affleck film Air, here’s how Michael Jordan and Nike’s iconic Air Jordans transformed the sneakerhead subculture into a $79 billion industry.

Sneakers have come a long way from when they were first invented in 1860s England for the upper-class playing croquet and tennis.

Long worn for function rather than fashion, today sneakers are an entire culture—both a form of self-expression and a high art found in museum exhibits and designer auction houses where a single pair can fetch millions of dollars.

As Ben Affleck’s star-studded film Air depicts, the emergence of sneaker culture can be traced to Nike’s 1984 collaboration with basketball superstar Michael Jordan on their iconic Air Jordans. Here’s the story of sneakers—and the sneakerheads who collect them.

Air Jordans and the rise of sneaker culture

Most sneakerheads credit the advent of their subculture to the rise of athlete-endorsed shoes in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Converse’s Chuck Taylor All-Stars had dominated the basketball courts for decades—and brands like Puma and Adidas started to get in on the action.

“What was happening in New York was an intertwining of basketball, hip-hop, and [break dancing],” says Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, which in 2013 became the first North American museum to devote an exhibit to the history of sneakers.

But what transformed sneaker culture into a true phenomenon was the 1985 release of Nike’s Air Jordan 1s. In 1984, Michael Jordan was a talented rookie who had yet to play in a professional game. Despite that, Nike—better known then as a running shoe company—saw Jordan as the future of their brand and signed him to a five-year, $2.5 million endorsement deal.

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Air Jordan 1s were not your grandfather’s basketball shoes. Debuting in bold hues of white, black, and red, Air Jordans were a defiant taunt to the NBA guidelines that required footwear to be 51 percent white. Sensing a marketing opportunity, Nike paid the $5,000 fine players received each time he stepped on the court wearing the shoes. The bet paid off: As Jordan proved to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time, the sneaker’s popularity skyrocketed.

( Who invented basketball? Here's a history of the sport. )

Sneaker culture began to take off beyond the basketball court too. When the influential hip-hop group Run-D.M.C. released their single "My Adidas"   in 1986, it earned the group a first-of-its-kind endorsement deal with the brand. Soon after, Kurt Cobain of the grunge band Nirvana made Converse a symbol of rebellion and youth.

Meanwhile, another cultural shift was taking place as white-collar businesses introduced casual Fridays. “It’s when you have an opening of the male wardrobe,” Semmelhack says. Suddenly, men were allowed to put aside their suits “and wear something one day a week that showed people who they really were.”

Sneakers become status symbols

As sneakers became increasingly coveted, footwear companies turned to generating even more hype by collaborating with celebrities and luxury brands, as well as releasing small batches of limited-edition shoes with eye-popping designs.

Rare sneakers became sought-after among collectors, and the sneaker reseller market flourished. “I have Air Jordan 1, 2, 3, and 5, so I better find 4,” Semmelhack says of the mentality that drove the rise of collectors. As resellers began to mark those shoes up at incredible costs, she adds, it only reinforced how special they were.

Pivotal artists like Rihanna, Travis Scott, and Kanye West defined the shoe game for nearly a decade with their iconic collaborations with brands. And then came the Kardashians.

( A mecca for rap has emerged in the birthplace of jazz and blues. )

“The Kardashian era had a huge impact on the culture,” says Jazerai Allen-Lord , a ground-breaking sneaker strategist, designer, and writer. After reality TV star Kim Kardashian married rapper-turned-fashion-designer Kanye West, she and her sisters started to wear his designs, which “helped target a whole new demographic of people to experience sneaker culture. It was a blending of high and low fashion, which the shoe industry never really seen before.”

By the mid-2010s, sneakers had become solid gold status symbols —literally, in the case of hip-hop artist Drake, who in 2016 commissioned a one-of-a-kind pair of Air Jordans wrapped in 24-carat solid gold. The estimated $2.1 million sneakers weighed 50 pounds each.

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“Wearing rare and cool sneakers [became] an expression of one’s social status,” says Yuniya (Yuni) Kawamura, professor of sociology at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “They want to show off what they have and say that they are slightly better than others.”

But not all sneakerheads are this extreme. “The stereotype is that we are all in this for excess and status,” Allen-Lord says. “It’s a piece of the culture but it isn’t the whole culture.”

What is real sneakerhead culture?

For Xzaiver Griffin, 29, a Florida-based digital marketing manager who has around a hundred pairs of sneakers, collecting has brought him “a true community.”

“I’ve met true friends through sneakers. Whether it was camping out all night for a release back in the day or looking out for one another on release day to get a sneaker you really want, that’s what the sneakerhead culture is to me,” he says, adding that his friends have a group chat called Sneakerhead Alphas named for their fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha.

Sneakers are also how people express their beliefs—for instance, when NBA player Dwyane Wade wore his custom-designed, limited-edition “Black Lives Matter” Li-Nings or NFL placekicker Blair Walsh wore anti-bullying cleats covered in the words “Speak Out.”

( She founded Black Lives Matter. Here's why she's so hopeful for the future .)

“It’s like art,” says Akio Evans , a Baltimore creative who specializes in turning shoes into wearable artwork. “Even though it is a sneaker that is on the shelves or inside of a box inside a store, the very first thing you are doing is admiring what you see. You look at all the pieces and decide which one resonates with you.”

Decades after their first introduction to the fashion industry, sneakers are finally getting their due as part of our cultural heritage—and particularly how Black culture has shaped that heritage.

“The most impactful moment for the industry in the past three years was Nike, Adidas, and Reebok flat-out acknowledging there would not be sneaker culture without Black culture,” says Allen-Lord. “It took decades for them to even say that, for them to recognize that without these Black athletes or artists that [championed] their products there would be no sneaker culture.”

Starting, of course, with Michael Jordan. Today, more than 100 million pairs of Air Jordan 1s have been sold worldwide. In April 2023, a pair that Jordan wore in his legendary final NBA season sold for $2.2 million, making them the most expensive sneakers ever to appear at auction .

“It’s 2023, and Nike is still selling the same shoe that was designed almost 40 years ago,” says Allen-Lord. “Because of their permanence and their visibility as a status symbol, every kid aspires to create a shoe line.”

Still, there’s more to do on that front. According to NBC , only 5 percent of sneaker retailers in the U.S. are Black. But Allen-Lord says sneaker culture has also allowed her “to create space and opportunity for Black creatives, specifically women, to get their foot into the door in the sneaker industry.” And with more people at the table, the richer the narrative around sneakers will become.

“Sneaker culture has a strong storytelling heritage,” she says. “Everyone wants to tell their story.”

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Photos show the rise and fall of Nike's iconic Air Jordan sneakers — and how the shoes are making a comeback 16 years after Michael Jordan's retirement

• In 1984, Nike and NBA player Michael Jordan teamed up to launch one of the most iconic athlete-endorsed brands of all time: Jordan Brand .
• During the years Jordan was still playing professional basketball, the brand would release a new sneaker with every season, and it was the shoe Jordan would play in that year. 
• Since Jordan's retirement, sneaker drops consist of new versions of the classic shoes and something sneakerheads call a "retro" — a re-release of an original shoe. The Air Jordan 11 December holiday drops are among the most anticipated, and this year's "Black/Red" colorway release is generating lots of excitement .
• Kids who grew up between 1984 and 2003 — the year Jordan left the NBA as a player for good — were a huge part of the success of the brand, according to a sneaker resale expert.
• Just as fashion trends come and go, the brand's sales dipped in 2014. Matt Cohen, a sneaker collector and the vice president of business development and strategy at GOAT Group, told Business Insider he believed this dip was due to a shift in fashion and a lack of consumer connection to Jordan, the man. 
• Collaborations brought the brand back in late 2017, and it's still having a moment today. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In 1984, Nike teamed up with Michael Jordan to launch Jordan Brand, a brand of shoes and athletic wear built around the player. At the time, Nike was a struggling brand selling running shoes with an idea to reinvent itself as a company for athletic stars.

Source: ESPN

ESPN reported that it wasn't so easy for the company to sign the then-budding NBA rookie. Nike reportedly offered Jordan $500,000 a year — in cash — for five years, hoping it could convince him to come on board.

Unfortunately for Nike, Jordan really wanted to work with Adidas. But, Adidas wasn't really an option for Jordan, as the company was undergoing a leadership shift at the time.

Converse, the shoe Jordan wore while playing for the University of North Carolina, wanted to sign Jordan, but it already had celebrity athlete endorsers in Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

Converse made Jordan an offer, but he reportedly wasn't excited by it and didn't know where he would fit in the brand's already star-studded lineup.

Still, Jordan made one last attempt at his dream company, taking Nike's offer to Adidas and asking them to come "anywhere close" to the offer. It didn't work out with Adidas, and Jordan ultimately signed with Nike.

Nike wanted to build an entire line around Jordan's almost-superhuman ability to dunk, according to ESPN.

Once Jordan was on board, he began wearing the brand's shoes on the court. The first Nike shoe he wore in the NBA was the Nike Air Ship seen below.

Source: Nike/Jordan Brand

The very first pair that he wore from his eponymous brand was called Air Jordan I. It caused a lot of commotion both on and off the court.

The shoes were originally released to stores in April 1985, and they were an instant hit. ESPN reported that Nike had sold $70 million worth of the shoes by May — just a month into the release — and that the Air Jordan brand had made Nike more than $100 million by the end of the year.

Source: Nike Jordan Brand , ESPN

Nike cofounder Phil Knight called the success of Air Jordan I "the perfect combination of quality product, marketing, and athlete endorsement."

Athlete endorsement is a strategy that many companies have employed over the years. From burgers to cellphones, NBA players are great at selling just about anything.

Source: Bleacher Report

Naturally, when one of the best players of all time — arguably the best athlete of all time — started selling sneakers, his fans wanted to get their hands on them.

When MJ first donned those Chicago Bulls-colored sneakers, the NBA had a rule about having all players in primarily white shoes.

Jordan was fined $5,000 for wearing the shoes, but instead of taking them off the court, Nike decided it was great exposure for the brand and chose to pay all of MJ's fines so he could continue to wear the shoes.

Fans saw Jordan do things his own way when it came to playing the game, but this was the first time they saw him make what was essentially a huge fashion statement, Matt Cohen, VP of business development and strategy at GOAT Group, told Business Insider.

Two longtime Air Jordan collectors and members of the sneaker community told Business Insider their love for the brand started when they were kids watching MJ play ball.

"The reason I like Jordans is because I like basketball and I like Michael Jordan," Hana Mandapat told Business Insider.

The longtime collector used to visit family in Chicago, and after the Bulls won their first "three-peat" — the famous back-to-back-to-back championship — she started paying attention to Jordan, the man.

Mandapat started collecting Air Jordans in the year 2000, when she was a junior in high school. That was the year that Nike started to "retro" — or bring back into the market — certain Jordan styles. Her very first pair were the Air Jordan XIs.

Mandapat worked in retail — sneaker retail, of course — so she could put herself through college and afford to build up her Jordan collection. She said she became friends with other people in sneaker retail and they formed a sort of community, often calling on one another to help them get a new pair that was coming out.

Both Mandapat and Cohen identified the 2000s as an era of "everything throwback." Mandapat said the rise in popularity of Jordan retros as a lifestyle shoe "made sense" at the time because of the nostalgia factor.

"I was watching Michael Jordan play basketball and do things that had never been done before," Cohen said. "When you're a kid, everything is about nostalgia ... you want to dress like the athlete that you had looked up to."

"You're watching arguably the greatest player, if not the greatest athlete of all time, do things in his own way," Cohen said. "The way he played the game, the way he actually wore shoes on and off the court."

Cohen has been collecting shoes since the late '90s, when he was in his early teens. For him, "it was about always wanting that shoe."

Demand for each season's Jordans was high, Cohen said. "It was this historic thing every single year when that new pair of Jordans was coming out."

Source: Business Insider

"I was skipping school to go to the local sneaker store where I grew up at seven in the morning. At that point it was great — you only had to get there three hours early, waiting for that shoe to release," he said. "It was about buying them, putting them on your feet, and walking into school and everyone saying 'How do you have that shoe?' ... I was two hours late, but that's neither here nor there, don't tell my teachers."

It's been ingrained in Cohen since he was a kid, and he's not the only one. This phenomenon gave Nike the opportunity to successfully employ the idea of a "retro."

When a style was retro'd, that meant it was an older style — likely from the days Jordan was playing ball — that was revived and re-released into the retail market.

Mandapat said that her very first pair of retro'd Air Jordan XIs were less than $100 at the time she bought them — she estimates around $80-$85 — since she's able to wear kids' sizes. In 2018, when the shoes retro'd again, she remembered the kids' sizes costing $180.

Both Mandapat and Cohen said that as kids, it wasn't so easy to get your hands on limited-release shoes.

"'Hey mom, I want to spend $120 on a pair of shoes,'" Cohen remembered. "And she was just like, 'Why can't you just get the $30 pair or the $60 pair?'" He said he would try and negotiate, even saying he'd use his birthday money.

Adults, on the other hand, are making their own money and spending it how they want. Cohen pointed out that at the time of original Jordan releases, sometimes there would be multiple colorways released at once, but he was only allowed to get one.

Now, he can get all the variations he wanted but wasn't allowed to get back then.

He told me he used to "hunt" for Jordans before he started really collecting them. He would go around buying as many pairs of the new release as he could, and then would resell them with a strategy to make a profit.

The Air Jordan III is Cohen's "favorite shoe of all time." It was the first shoe to feature the Jumpman logo on the tongue.

The shoe also happened to coincide with the start of Flight Club in 1999. The store was called Vintage Kicks at the time.

Flight Club was the original consignment store for rare and collectible sneakers. People like Cohen, who were buying with the intent to resell, would bring their shoes to the store and wait for them to sell. They mostly sold to everyone who couldn't — or just didn't want to — wait online or enter a raffle to be able to buy them from Nike itself.

Source: Flight Club

Fans were all over the Jordan brand while MJ was still playing in the NBA, and they would often pay hiked-up prices at stores like Flight Club. But Cohen said the brand had cachet even after Jordan retired because tastemakers like Spike Lee ...

... and Brandy Norwood — just to name two — continued to show their support. Cohen said the shoes were often seen across all facets of pop culture at the time.

Alas, as time went on, there was a short decline for Nike's Jordan Brand. Cohen said the slump began around 2014, due to a combination of different factors.

Cohen's take is that it was largely caused by fashion's move away from basketball-influenced clothing. He said when he thinks about who the tastemakers were in 2014 and 2015, he noticed that they were wearing skinnier-legged pants. Take a look at Pharrell Williams on the MTV red carpet in 2002 ...

... versus his MTV red carpet look here in 2015. "These athletes and celebrities who were typically wearing Jordans with baggier style pants then started wearing skinnier, tight pants, and the traditional chunky sneaker fell out of vogue," Cohen said.

Cohen also noted that there were simply more players in the lifestyle sneaker game once 2014 rolled around. Fashion sites like Highsnobiety point out that the rise of Adidas suppressed whatever momentum Nike — and Jordan Brand in particular — had going for it.

Source: Highsnobiety , Business Insider

Kanye West worked with Nike to release the Air Yeezy in 2009. He left the brand for Adidas in 2013, claiming that Nike wasn't interested in executing any of his design ideas.

Source: Hype Beast , BuzzFeed News , GQ

"Jordan Brand lost its luster," Cohen said. "They experienced so much success for so many years that [Nike] didn't have to try that hard ... The product that they started putting out wasn't speaking to the OG community who watched Jordan play."

Cohen said that many of the people who the company gained as customers after Michael Jordan stopped playing actually don't even know who the NBA star is, so they weren't buying Jordans out of nostalgia. He said GOAT has seen massive growth in its 12- to 17-year-old customer demographic over the past few years.

"Their new idols are Stephen Curry," Cohen said. "When Steph came onto the scene, he became the number one best-selling basketball jersey ... and guess what else they were buying? Steph Curry shoes." Curry is an Under Armour-sponsored athlete.

After losing Kanye West and losing its ranking as a top sneaker seller to Adidas, the Jordan Brand decided to do something Cohen said it actively stayed away from previously: non-athlete collaborations.

Source: Forbes , Highsnobiety

"Collaborations are what people want now," Cohen said. So Jordan Brand is collaborating on iconic styles with some of the biggest names in fashion, like with its 2017 Retro High OG Friends and Family shoe with Colette in Paris.

Enter: designer collaborations like Virgil Abloh's Off-White in 2018 ...

... and celebrity collaborations like with Travis Scott this year,

Another great aspect of expensive collaborations is that they increase demand for older styles. "Guess what, if someone can't afford that $1,000 collaboration, they're going for the next-best thing," Cohen said. "So Nike deploys rarity [by introducing a collaboration on limited release], and if someone can't afford that pair, they still want something close."

Nike also took action toward getting its original Michael Jordan-loving clientele back by reviving new versions of retros that resonated with them. Cohen said that the Nike Air logo was originally on the back of early Jordan shoes because the Jumpman logo pictured here wasn't made right away.

Nike re-released the Air Jordan III — the first ever white cement, Cohen said — most recently in 2013 and called it the Retro '88. 1988 was the year the shoe was originally released. Instead of having the Jumpman logo on the heel plate, they replaced it with the Nike Air logo.

Source: Flight Club , Kicks on Fire

Cohen had the original retro Jordan IIIs in the white cement colorway from a few years prior, with the Jumpman logo on the back. He said it was imperative that he got his hands on "that Nike Air logo."

Nike started employing more strategies like this to get back in touch with the original collecting consumer.

Cohen said the company brings back the most iconic styles for Black Friday every year. "We've seen a re-release of the Jordan XI Space Jams, an iconic shoe that hadn't been released in 10 years." This was the shoe Michael Jordan wore in the 1996 film "Space Jam."

Mandapat is just one more collector who capitalizes on those re-releases. She said she now has every Air Jordan XI Concord retro since the original came out in 2000.

Additionally, Cohen said that as younger consumers learn more and more about who Michael Jordan is and what he meant for the sneaker community, they think Jordan Brand is what they should be buying.

This is largely perpetuated by today's tastemakers bringing the shoe back into their wardrobe. Tennis champion and fashion icon Serena Williams has been seen putting on her custom Air Jordan Is after a match ...

... and following Williams' 23rd Grand Slam, Jordan himself sent her two pairs of the shoes — one of which was bright pink, her favorite color.

Custom pairs have also been made for other public figures. The Chicago Cubs celebrated their World Series win in 2017 with then-President Barack Obama, gifting him a customized version of these Jordan IVs.

Source: Business Insider , Flight Club

And Elon Musk wore a pair of custom Jordan Is made of black python skin and black hair on hide, according to DM Custom Sneakers.

One place where Cohen said Jordans never fell out of style is China. "Michael Jordan is still an incredible icon in China," he said. "Specifically, the Jordan I has always been a huge shoe in the Chinese sneaker market, and the Chinese consumer is such a huge part of global demand for sneakers."

With some reinvention and a new sense of storytelling, Jordan Brand clawed its way back into the game in 2018. Complex likened the comeback to the player himself, who "made his name by playing with a chip on his shoulder and having a laser focus on success." Jordan Brand has executed this comeback so well that it has worked its way back into monthly lists of the top-selling shoes in America.

Source: Complex , GQ

• Main content

• Air Jordans

Air Jordan 1 History Lesson

• November 1, 2019

Air Jordan 1 Origin Story

The Air Jordan 1 is arguably the most important sneaker in the history of footwear. Not only was it Michael Jordan’s first signature sneaker from Nike, but it was the beginning of Nike’s ingenuity when it comes to storytelling. The Air Jordan 1 began as a basketball sneaker, found a second life with skateboarders in the 1980s, launched the retro crazed world that we live in today where new colorways and collaborations seem to release every week. How did the Air Jordan 1 become so iconic? We’re glad you asked.

The Air Jordan 1 was designed by Peter Moore. While most of the components of the shoe were pulled from other Nike designs like the Air Force 1, Nike Dunk, Air Ship, and Nike Vandal, the one thing that was completely exclusive to the Air Jordan 1 was the logo that Moore sketched for Michael Jordan’s agent, David Falk. The ‘Wings’ logo as we know it today features a basketball with wings coming out from each side, the perfect metaphor and marketing genius for Michael “Air” Jordan and his new signature sneakers.

The story of the Nike Air Jordan 1 begins well before the sneaker ever became public knowledge. In the early 1980s, Nike Co-Founder was on the verge of flipping the footwear business upside down like the waffle soles he and Bill Bowerman had turned into running shoes in the decade prior. The ’80s were different, though, and with competition rising around them, Phil Knight had the foresight to see that Nike wasn’t in the shoe business, they were in the entertainment business.

Nike CEO, Phil Knight on The Air Jordan 1

In 1984, after nearly losing him to adidas (and Converse), Phil Knight and the team at Nike signed one of the greatest entertainers of all time, Michael Jordan. MJ’s original contract with Nike was valued at $500,000 per year, an unprecedented amount for any athlete at the time. The potential upside for Michael was that it also offered him stock options. For Nike, taking such a huge financial risk was given a safety net in the form of one stipulation. If the partnership didn’t result in an ambitious level of $4 million dollars in sales by the end of the third year, they had the right to end the partnership.

As the story goes, Nike designer Peter Moore, who designed the iconic Nike Air Force 1, among others, came up with the idea to “break the color barrier in footwear.” You see, in the early 1980s the only bright colors you would find on sneakers were likely on a pair of running shoes, or maybe women’s focused aerobic sneakers. When it came to basketball shoes, the colors were almost always an accent color that was added to a mostly white sneaker. Although, as mentioned on our podcast about the Air Jordan 1, hoopers on the streets of New York City like Bobbito Garcia had already started switching up the colors by customizing their AF1s to stand out when they hit the courts, the trend was still handcuffed by the dress code of the NBA but MJ debuted the shoe regardless.

Nike Designer, Peter Moore and the Air Jordan 1

Peter Moore and Nike Vice President, Rob Strasser, had met with Michael Jordan’s agent, David Falk, and decided that ‘Air Jordan’ would be the name of the shoes Michael would wear. In an interview with Slam in 2018, Moore tells the story of flying home from the meeting and on the plane, noticing the plastic wings on a pin that a kid had just received from the flight attendant. Moore asked the flight attendant for a set for himself. He started drawing the wings on a napkin and put the basketball in the middle of it. In truly a legendary fashion, what started as a quick sketch on a napkin while sitting with Strasser, went on to become the iconic Air Jordan ‘Wings’ logo that we know and love today.

To be continued…

Air Jordan 1 Commercials:

Aj1 commercial ‘banned’.

AJ1 Commercial ‘Takeoff’

AJ1 Commercial ‘Santa’

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Nick Engvall

Nick Engvall is a sneaker enthusiast with over 15 years of experience in the footwear business. He has written for publications such as Complex, Sole Collector, and Sneaker News, helped companies like Eastbay, Finish Line, Foot Locker, StockX, and Stadium Goods better connect with their consumers, has an addiction to burritos and Sour Patch Kids, and owns way too many shoes for his own good.

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Jordan Shoots His Shot

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The Power of Partnerships – A Nike & Michael Jordan Case Study

Find the perfect partnerships and take your business to the next level.

Here’s the perfect Case Study on Partnerships: The year was 1984. A rookie by the name of Michael Jordan was about to start his first season in the NBA, looking for an athlete endorsement deal and keen to sign with Adidas. Along came Nike, a brand predominantly known at the time for long-distance running shoes. Whilst everyone recognised the immense talent in this rookie, Nike was ready to put all their chips on the table and offered him a deal far more lucrative than the more prominent sports apparel companies such as Adidas.  

Michael Jordan had never even worn a Nike shoe before. Still, he was convinced by his parents to take the deal over Adidas, commencing the legendary partnership between Michael Jordan and Nike. The Air Jordan was born, and the rest is history.  

Caserta, Caserta, Italia. Image from Unsplash

NBA rules meant that players could only wear white sneakers at the time. Leveraging that Michael Jordan played for the Chicago Bulls, Nike designed the first Air Jordans in red, black, and white. The NBA was not very pleased and fined Michael Jordan $5,000 every time he wore the shoes. However, Nike was willing to pay the fines and have the shoes stand out from the crowd. They predicted $3 million in sales of the Air Jordan in the first four years of the deal.  

Nike sold $126 million in the first year alone.  

Nike became a mainstream shoe, having previously been known mainly as a track running shoe, slipped into popular culture as the edgy must-have sneaker, and is now one of the most recognised brands on the planet.  

Michael Jordan became arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, and off the field, he has also made $1.3 billion from his deal with Nike alone.  

Jordans. Image from Unsplash

This shows the power of partnerships and how two new entrants to an arena can combine forces to make a massive impact. Sometimes, partnering with someone who understands your vision and can strategically help you scale your business is the key to long-term success.  

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Moscow's Cityscape Inspires Special-Edition Nike Sneakers

Nike has drawn inspiration from Moscow’s towering housing blocks and industrial landscape for the “Smoke Gray” design of its commemorative sneakers.

2020 marks 30 years since the release of the Air Max 90, anointed “one of the greatest sneakers of all time” by style standard-bearer GQ.

#Nike looks to Moscow's history and architecture for its latest Air Max 90 colorway. Photo: Nike Details: https://t.co/GEli9kCjlh pic.twitter.com/tofxODqcB5 — HYPEBEAST (@HYPEBEAST) November 9, 2020

Nike's special-edition Air Max 90s, which pay homage to the Russian capital with a city-inspired color scheme and Cyrillic text, go on sale in select Moscow retailers and online this Saturday.

The new design is a nod to the Air Max 90 becoming “the first Nike sneaker to be widely recognized in Russia,” the company said in its announcement. 

The Smoke Gray color scheme symbolizes Moscow’s “construction and the city’s fall sky,” while infrared and laser blue elements “reflect the city’s night lights.”

“ The Nike Air Max 90 Moscow upper, made of classic leather and suede, also features reflective touches to signify the futuristic aesthetic of the skyscrapers that shifted the city's skyline ,” it said.

The words skorost’ and gorod (Russian for “speed” and “city”) have been emblazoned on the shoe’s heel and sockliner to “ refer to the dynamic rhythm of the megalopolis .”

The Air Max 90 city pack released earlier in 2020 also pays tribute to New York and its firefighters, Paris and its bakers, London and its mail carriers, Tokyo and its construction workers, as well as Shanghai and its delivery service workers.

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Nike Heads to Russia for Air Max 90 "Moscow"

Inspired by the city’s history and architecture..

Nike has continued the Air Max 90 ‘s 30th anniversary celebrations by releasing a special-edition version inspired by Moscow. The decision to honor the Russian city is a reference to the Air Max 90s popularity in the country, becoming the first Nike sneaker to be widely recognized across Russia.

The design of the sneaker is inspired by Moscow’s rich history and modern architecture, with a “Smoke Gray” colorway chosen as a nod to buildings across the city and the fall sky. Elsewhere, “Infrared” and “Lazer Blue” details pay tribute to Moscow’s night lights, while reflective touches bring to mind the skyscrapers across the skyline.

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