Watching Air and how Nike signed Michael Jordan
Some General observations on the movie Air
In the 90s Michael Jordan was a greek god who played basketball. He was venerated and worshipped by people in the universal language of “buying stuff with his name on it”. This was how I had heard of and understood Michael Jordan. The movie Air gave me a new perspective on both Nike and Michael Jordan.
Nike was a small shoe company
Converse was the preferred shoe for basketball. Adidas was a juggernaut. Seems unthinkable now.
Phil Knight didn’t even think basketball shoes were a good idea
Running shoes are better because people buy more of them. Then they use the same shoes for walking. Who would buy basketball shoes?
Michael Jordan’s Mom negotiated a revenue share for Michael Jordan
This was unheard of at the time. Michael Jordan’s mom in the movie convinced Nike to give them the deal.
“A shoe is just a shoe until my son steps into it.”
Michael Jordan sold $160 million worth of shoes in the first year against Nike’s modest expectations of $3 million.
Nike did pretty much everything that did not scale
While other shoe makers were putting all the athletes in a pipeline and making them wear the same shoes, Nike designed a shoe just for Michael Jordan.
It was insane to go all in on Michael Jordan
Nike went all in. They took their entire $250k basketball marketing budget and put it all on Michael Jordan, who was a rookie who had never played in the NBA. They didn’t diversify, they didn’t hedge, they went all in.