Michael Jordan initially wanted to wear the shoes with three stripes when the National Basketball Association (NBA) drafted him back in 1984. Adidas was what the league’s top stars wore that time – especially big men. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the first professional basketball player-endorser of the brand with his signature low-cut Adidas Jabbar. Aside from dominating the court in the 80s, the brand was also a hit on the streets.
I remember the title-winning Philippine team coached by Ron Jacobs during the 1982 Asian Basketball Confederation Junior Championships held at the Araneta Coliseum in their Top 10s. My brother and I nagged our parents to buy us the shoes, but they made “dedma” since the kicks sellf for about P500, which was a price already considered as a fortune that time. I managed to have later a high-top model of the Jabbar. So, where was Adidas’ top competitor then? Nike was more into running that time. Their shoes were worn by track legends Carl Lewis, Steve Prefontaine and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Nike then ventured into tennis and had the game’s original bad boy Ilie Nastase of Romania, who was at his peak, as endorser.
Adidas distributors in the United States wanted to get Jordan because they knew he wanted to wear the brand. However, the company had a long standing relationship with big men, and Jabbar’s success with his shoe made the executives in Germany decided it’s a no for Jordan anymore for the reason that he was too short.
After knowing that Adidas was out of the race, Converse also made
their intentions felt. They had in their stable at that time future NBA legends
Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Jordan thought that he can’t compete with them if
he would also wear the same brand. Do you remember the Converse Weapon worn by
Larry and Magic in the colors of Celtics and Lakers, respectively? Now,
Converse is a part of the Nike empire.
So swoosh it was for MJ, and the first Jordans became controversial because
NBA’s policy at that time requires shoes should be at least 50% white. The Air
Force 1 (also known as AJ1) were in black and red, so, the NBA penalized Jordan
$5,000 every time he wore the shoes. Nike happily paid for the fines which
generated unprecedented sales for the model. Several models later, the Air
Jordans arguably became the world’s most popular shoes, be it on or off the
court. The Jordan 11s are believed to be the best model and are one of Nike’s
best-selling shoes to date. Prices even go up to 500$ in the secondary market.
Adidas made up for
their mistake when they got Kevin Garnett (1995) and Kobe Bryant (1996). But
for 40 million reasons, Kobe jumped to Nike in 2003 – the same year that Jordan
retired from the game for good.
Today, Jordan takes active part in the design and production of shoes and
apparels. He has several professional basketball and baseball players endorsing
them. The Jordan Brand branched out to American football, baseball and soccer. They
supply equipment to college teams like North Carolina Tar Heels (of course),
Michigan Wolverines, Florida Gators, Oklahoma Sooners, and French soccer club
Paris Saint-Germain.
A money magnet, Nike announced that for the 2019 fiscal year, the Jordan Brand
earned $3.14 billion. Jordan’s cut was somewhere between $130m to $140m. No
wonder he’s on the Forbes’ 2020 list of the world’s top 1,000 billionaires. Since
he retired, more Jordan Brand shoes and apparels were sold than any other
signature brands of current NBA players combined.
Imagine if Jordan had been wearing Adidas with Lebron James, Kevin Durant,
Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Zion Williamson because they grew up watching His
Airness play. Where would the German brand be today?/PN
