Of course, you are thinking right, it’s about the shoes inspired by the silhouette of Michael Jordan that served as inspiration to create the “Jumpman” logo of these Nike shoes. Air Jordan is a line of basketball shoes that were considered the sneakers of the generation. Jordans are considered cultural icons based on Nike’s history and legacy, design and inspiration, style, material and unparalleled branding.
They were designed by Peter B. Moore, and released during Jordan’s sophomore season with the Chicago Bulls. The secret sauce of this sneaker was too simple, it was designed in 1984, the changing year for pop culture and was for consumers who might or might not like basketball (might or might even play sports) and could be from any walk of life. This accessibility made it the public’s favorite.
The Jordans debuted in 1984 on the NBA court, and each time Michael Jordan wore them on the court, he was fined $5,000 because they broke the league’s rules. The NBA had a policy back in the day which was called the 51 % rule, the rule enforced all players to wear shoes that had 51% black or white on them. On October 18, 1984, Michael Jordan went against that rule and wore the red and black Nike airships.
Air Jordan was never really banned? or was it?
The NBA has sent Nike a letter stating that the shoe’s colors did not comply with the policies, uniform rules and procedures of the NBA. This brought a lot of attention to the shoe and Michael Jordan and Nike decided to ignore the letter and that MJ would still play in the shoes. Nike did not only pay the $5000 fine but also turned it into an opportunity of a lifetime.
What a lot of people don’t know is that, in 1984 the shoes that MJ wore in court were placeholder Nike Airships while the original was being designed. He wore them in white and red and also in a special black and red colorway. And it was the Airships that the NBA had so-called banned. It was more like a warning not banned, which was again for the Airships and not Jordans. The Air Jordans were never really banned.
The name of the shoes ‘Air Jordan’ was thought of in mere minutes by David Falk and Rob Strasser. They realized it WAS not going to feel credible with the name ‘Michael Jordan‘ because he was just a 21-year-old and he sure did not come up with the design in his apartment. Before Air Jordan 1, basketball shoes were white shoes any color at all was subtly placed with a connection to the team’s jersey, Air Jordan was bold and loud.
Nike released a banned ad campaign which had a video of Michael Jordan thumping the basketball and the shot goes down to his shoes where they had black boxes on them and it said “On October 18th, the NBA threw the shoe out. Fortunately, the NBA can’t stop you from wearing them. It created huge hype and people went crazy for the shoe.
Air Jordan brand generates $2.3bn for Nike every year even years later
In 1984, Nike was still a very new company in the basketball shoe market struggling to keep up with Adidas and Converse, the then giants. In 1984 they had great players like Moses Malone and Jamal Wilkes but didn’t have a Marquee player like other brands. Adidas had Magic Johnson, Isaiah Thomas and other notable players from the game. They wanted someone to be the face of Nike basketball and bring fresh eyes to Nike.
It would come as a surprise that Nike had the young rookie in mind but the 19-year-old was not keen on signing with them. He was influenced by then Adidas and wanted to be their face but they did not show great interest. In the words of David Falk, “He did not even wanna get on the plane and go see Nike.“He suggested going to see all companies like getting recruited by colleges but MJ was reluctant.
In the next turn of events when Jordan came on board with Nike he told the designer Peter how he did not like that the Nike shoe soles were always so high, and he wanted to be closer to the floor. After a few designs, he used a black-and-red colorway pattern to match MJ’s Chicago Bulls Jersey.
Michael Jordan earns about 5% on Jordan Brand sales as part of his licensing deal with Nike, according to Front Office Sports. They reported that Jordan received $256 million from the deal in 2022 alone. A moment that could have been in shambles was turned into a marketing movement. This gave the fans of the sport a basketball player they loved and the best part was they could dress up like him off the court.