In the ever-evolving landscape of sports and fashion, few names stand as tall as Michael Jordan. The legendary basketball player, known for his prowess on the court, has also left an indelible mark on the world of sneakers. In a recent revelation, Jordan sheds light on the worldwide phenomenon that his eponymous shoe brand has become and expresses gratitude towards his mother for a pivotal phone call that set the wheels in motion for a historic transaction.
“I wasn’t aware of the gravity of the situation and how important Michael Jordan was to Nike,” Hatfield recounted in the documentary Abstract: The Art of Design. He started working at the company in 1981 and was one of its most innovative designers. Hatfield had created another legendary shoe, the Air Max I, and was commissioned to design the Air Jordan III, the sneaker that had to persuade MJ not to leave the company. “We had a meeting with him to present [the sneakers] …and it took Michael four hours to show up. He was playing golf with other people, who were [telling] him to switch [companies],” Hatfield recounts. “He finally showed up in a bad mood and said, ‘What do you have?’” The innovations in design and materials piqued his interest, but Hatfield had held back one last element: the model came with a whole line of sportswear. “It was like the exclamation point at the end of a sentence.”
From then on, the pairing between Nike and Jordan became a trio; behind the scenes, Hatfield was the driving force. “Jordan had the ability to command the attention of people beyond the sports world, and Tinker found a way to translate that character and turn it into sneakers,” explains DJ and sneaker collector Bobbito Garcia in the aforementioned documentary. “The brand became huge with Air Jordans III, IV and V.” Jordan noted that he “wanted basketball shoes that you could wear to a game and [then] wear with a tuxedo that same day.” The idea worked to perfection: the rise of urban fashion cannot be understood without discussing Air Jordan and the brand’s ability to turn sporting goods into items that can easily be worn everywhere.
Creating a new model
“Jordan opened the door to a multibillion-dollar industry for athletes,” Vaccaro explained recently. Indeed, while he was not the first athlete to serve as the face of a brand, he created a new model. On the one hand, sportswear transcended the sports for which it was designed and became a fundamental part of urban fashion. On the other hand, the Jordan-Nike partnership activated a machine that constantly created sneakers and clothing revolving around different sports figures. This industry has grown to such an extent that, in some cases, shoe deals have earned athletes more money than the salaries they receive for playing their sport. For example, before entering the NBA, Zion Williamson signed a deal with Air Jordan that brings in more income annually than his salary as a player for the New Orleans Pelicans.
Today, all NBA stars have their own sneaker lines, and new models come out almost every year. A player’s retirement (or even death, as in the case of the late Kobe Bryant) does not stop the juggernaut from continuing to churn out new products for sneaker fans, an entire subculture that began with the rise of Air Jordans. Surprisingly, that entire process was set in motion by a mother’s scolding. For that reason, Deloris Jordan—played by Viola Davis at the request of Michael Jordan himself—figures prominently in Air. Ben Affleck explained in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he asked Jordan for “anecdotes” about his father. “Without going into any more detail, he actually talked about his mom, who wasn’t really in the script,” Affleck recounted. “That’s when I understood what the movie was. Talking to him about his mom was incredibly moving, and I realized, ‘Oh, this isn’t about Nike.’”
