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♪♪
Reagan: America is back, standing tall,
looking to the eighties with courage, confidence, and hope.
Jackson: We are not going to be put back into slavery
by our own people, who are selling dope to destroy us.
Announcer: On September 15th, Nike created
a revolutionary new basketball shoe.
On October 18th, the NBA threw them out of the game.
Man: Government is not the solution to our problem.
Government is the problem.
Man #2: Air Jordan, Air Jordan.
Man #3: Air Jordan, Air Jordan, Air Jordan.
This is something you can buy.
♪♪
Man #4: Michael! Michael, you stuck it baby!
Bush: Read my lips. No new taxes.
♪♪
Woman: People waited in line all night long
to get the new Air Jordan basketball shoes.
They literally broke a door off the hinges.
Several people were trampled,
while others crawled over them to get inside.
The shoes cost about $180.
Man: That's a lot of money to spend on shoes though, isn't it?
Yeah.
You know it's Michael Jordan, that's what he do.
All they want is that shoe.
My son, he just got to have them.
Man: Thank you, God bless you,
and God bless the United States of America.
Letterman: This last season, my next guest led his team,
the Chicago Bulls, into the NBA playoffs,
scoring a record of an amazing 63 points in a single game.
He is only 23 years of age.
Please welcome Michael Jordan, folks.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Hi, Michael.
Nice to see you. How are you?
Come on over.
My, oh my.
I got one thing to say.
Yeah? What's that?
I see Adidas shoes.
Yeah.
Why?
Well, now we can't talk about this, because the last time
we started talking about shoes, there was a huge deal,
and they had to run up to the legal department
and wake up the attorneys.
Now, I know you've got a huge contract with the company.
Put your feet down.
[ Laughter ]
Now, how much do you -- no stop that.
Or they won't let any of this on.
Okay.
Now, how much do you get paid just to wear these shoes?
A lot.
♪♪
Well, Nike started as a running company.
They started in the running business.
And they were successful in the running business.
They wanted to grow, and branch out.
They got into other sports.
Then, in 1984, they weren't doing very well.
Dixon: In the early eighties, that was when they slipped
to number two in America, to Reebok.
And at that time, Knight asked the group
"Do you think we should sell now?"
And they all said "No. we can figure a way out of it."
Nike was considered to be kind of like a stepchild
in the shoe game, at that point.
It was Converse. It was Adidas.
Other brands were much more solidly entrenched than Nike.
Nike was just this little company that could,
that was trying to fight for a piece of the market share.
Everybody in the business knew that the main consumer
for athletic shoes is 16-year-old boys.
So, the biggest sport to get to the masses is basketball.
Man: So, Nike knew that they needed to be in basketball,
but nobody really thought of Nike as a basketball brand,
particularly the kid.
The kid, as they called him, was the customer
who would buy basketball shoes.
And a lot of them were inner city kids.
So, Rob Strasser decided what we needed was an icon.
We needed to find ourselves a basketball player
that kids wanted to be.
♪ Like Michael. Fight to be like Michael. ♪
♪ I want to be, I want to be like Michael. ♪
♪ Like Michael. If I could be like Mike ♪
You know the reality is that black people,
since the beginning of time, have always made things cool.
Jazz, rock 'n' roll.
I mean, you pick literally anything,
from a cultural standpoint,
and we have always been the arbitrators of cool.
And it was really no different with sneakers.
Williams: Marketing the Jordan brand
to the African American community
has been the core of the success of the Jordan brand.
And so, in order for Jordan to be as successful
as they have been, they had to start with
the African American market.
And they had to take that, and grow it to this massive brand
that it is today.
Telander: In the 1980s, the African American community
was struggling to try to find a leader,
try to find something to believe in.
You could say it was about race, or skin color, or ethnicity,
but it was mostly, as always, about poverty.
About economic disparity, and about hope,
and about a chance to move ahead,
to actually become part of the alleged great American ladder,
where you can start anywhere, and you can make it to the top.
That great myth that we believe in, here in this country.
Hill: The 1980s was a volatile time in this country.
You know, growing up in Detroit, for us,
I mean, we were no different than New York,
Chicago, where the influx of drugs
had, overnight, kind of changed a lot of middle class,
working class neighborhoods.
It was a depressing time,
because a lot of what those baby boomers
that were there and fought through civil rights
in the sixties and seventies, they were kind of seeing
the progress that they made slip away.
[ Crowd chanting "Four more years!" ]
Lazenby: Well, you know, American society
was experiencing the Reagan years.
And it was the early birth of the conservative movement
as we know it today, with neo-conservatives.
Definitely, Ronald Reagan had lit the fires
for conservative thought.
Reagan: The present recession is bottoming out
without resorting to quick fixes.
There won't be a sudden boom, or upsurge,
but slowly and surely,
we'll have a sound and lasting recovery,
and an end to deficit spending.
Garcia: Generally, when you have Republican leadership,
it shifts and leans towards empowering corporate America,
privatization of institutions.
There's less funding for community programs.
You know, there was a big divide,
and a gap in the support for the youth.
Kent: Well, what was going on in the eighties,
it was communities within communities
building upon themselves,
and trying to take care of themselves.
And it kind of started fragmenting because of crack.
And because crack was so devastating,
it devastated the neighborhoods that we lived in.
Man: By the hundreds, Bronx residents made themselves heard today
to call for more action against the crack epidemic --
an epidemic measured in violence,
broken homes, and burnt-out youngsters.
Well, the first thing that you learn about sport
is that sport is a microcosm society.
And because this was happening in society,
it's always gonna seep into sport.
No different than, you know, what's happening
with the killing of unarmed black men
has seeped into the NFL with the Anthem protest.
And when you talk about the tragic deaths of athletes
like Len Bias,
which I think really changed everything.
By all intents and purposes people considered him
the next Michael Jordan.
When he collapsed, and passed away,
I think it really frightened a lot of people.
Len Bias was an all-American basketball star,
the University of Maryland's leading scorer.
And after four years of college, he was drafted this week
by the champion Boston Celtics.
Announcer: The world champion Celtics use their first round draft choice
to pick Bias to play for them after his graduation.
This morning, Len Bias was dead of cardio respiratory arrest.
No one knows why yet.
There are reports that traces of cocaine
were found in Bias' system.
Hill: The death of Len Bias,
it not only was a sports story it was an American story
that wind up having a deep impact
on how people viewed the drug problem in this country.
And so, this was a death that affected policy,
and that led to the mandatory minimums
that wound up being kind of the gateway
to the huge explosion in mass incarceration.
So, it wasn't just about this particular athlete
dying of a drug overdose.
This was about how this death shaped American policy
when it came to criminal justice.
That was coming out of the 1970s.
Cocaine was a big party drug in the NBA itself.
In 1984, David Stern would become commissioner,
and they would begin all of the drug policy
that eventually allowed the NBA to raise its profile.
But it took a while for that to really gain traction.
♪ We're the LA Lakers, and we're here to say ♪
♪ that the drugs are killing everything ♪
♪ Cocaine and crack, it's all got to go ♪
♪ We've got to learn to just say "no" ♪
♪ I'm Kareem, the captain of the team ♪
♪ I don't need drugs, I've got a higher thing ♪
♪ My sky hook makes the team look good. ♪
♪ But there's a hook we got to shape from the neighborhood ♪
Telander: In the eighties, basketball was starting, for the first time,
particularly at the highest levels,
to be dominated by black athletes.
And it hadn't been that way because of racism
and segregation.
You know, there had always been the greats, the Wrens,
and the Harlem Globe Trotters.
But people said "That doesn't really count."
Announcer: The Globe Trotters have made basketball
into something more like a ballet than a sport.
Supremely confident,
their choreography of sparkling precision
that leaves both spectators and opponents mystified.
Telander: The Chicago Bulls were a reflection of this new time.
Many of the players were black, many of the stars were,
and the crowd was still white.
You could sense, maybe, if not a tension,
but not a real kind of community feeling
between the basketball team and the surrounding area.
Lazenby: I remember going to Chicago Stadium,
which was located in blighted neighborhoods,
and there was a real sense of cultural clash there.
I think, until Jordan came,
Chicago wasn't really a destination for anybody.
They just didn't have that transcendent sports team
to make things change.
Lazenby: The Chicago Bulls were a relatively young franchise
in the early 1980s.
They'd only really gotten started in 1966/67.
But they were a dismal franchise in deep financial trouble.
On the outside, the Bulls were just a sad franchise.
But at the same time, the city wasn't expecting much from them.
There was always a sense of the Bulls doing decent --
never big, decent.
Bengtson: You just didn't care. Like, they didn't matter.
They were a team that came into town,
and they played, and no one cared.
Announcer: Chicago hasn't scored in the last two minutes.
There was a reason that they got to draft Michael Jordan third.
I mean, Houston took Hakeem.
The Portland Trailblazers took Sam Bowie.
Yeah, he went third.
Bengtson: They were awful.
You obviously don't get the number-three pick in the draft
unless you're terrible.
And they were pretty terrible.
Lazenby: Michael Jordan signing with the Bulls,
the fact that he was the third player taken,
and the Bulls had that third choice, was just amazing.
The Chicago Bulls pick Michael Jordan.
♪♪
Lazenby: People thought, "Well, you know, I saw this guy play
in college for North Carolina.
He was pretty exciting."
♪♪
Jackson: He was the two-time Player of the Year
after his freshman year.
But if you really followed the game, he still wasn't --
to a lot of people, wasn't the best player in the ACC.
You know, Len Bias was the best player in the ACC.
That kind of shifted during that summer with USA basketball.
You know, we kind of knew the dude was nice.
But it was after the draft
when we find out how nice he really was.
We didn't know he had the ability to score like that.
Announcer: Jordan gets Sims off his feet, and shoots right over him.
There's Jordan.
14 for Michael Jordan.
Then, Fleming from Georgia,
nice dump pass by Alford to the acrobatic Michael Jordan.
And some people were like, "Oh, my God.
We just got, I think,
a great, great basketball player."
But nobody knew.
The Americans were so much better
than everybody else in 1984 that it was almost absurd
to make any comparisons about anything.
Announcer: Jordan again.
Announcer #2: He's beautiful.
And Nike had identified him.
Sonny Vaccaro, who was an executive at Nike,
not even a high-level executive.
But he managed a lot of Nike's basketball business.
He got the sense, in watching Jordan as freshman
at the Final Four
that Jordan was going to be this cross-over person.
And on Sonny Vaccaro's hunch,
they were already negotiating his contract with Nike.
♪♪
You know, Sonny is the driving force who convinced them.
Like, "Look. Don't spread everything out.
you know, "Trust me, this one guy --
this Michael Jordan coming out of North Carolina --
is gonna be the guy."
Announcer: Michael Jordan.
Everything seems to be
like a highlight film when he plays.
Man: Well, Sonny Vaccaro came to Nike
basically through the college ranks.
And he had a tournament called "The Dapper Dan,"
that was held in Pittsburgh,
that Nike had wanted to get involved with,
because that was where top high school kids went to play.
So, if you really wanted to know who the next basketball player
was gonna be, you went to Sonny Vaccaro.
You know, he was the one who convinced them,
"if you pay a college coach X amount,
they'll wear your shoes.
Give me this budget, and I'll go get you
the best college coaches."
The deal was this coach, you sign the coach,
his team wears Nike shoes.
Sonny really knew how to spot the young basketball stars.
To get them when they're in high school,
to get them in the Nike shoes, to get them used to them,
so when they turned pro, they would go with Nike.
Garcia: It was brilliant.
Sonny Vaccaro at Nike,
like, he knew what he was doing, you know?
It was like "Alright, well, we can't compete with y'all
up there, but we're gonna kill y'all over here.
And all these cats that are here
are gonna be those next Julius Erving,
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Tiny Archibald."
Lazenby: The coaches were stunned.
They didn't think it was legal.
Is this free money?
And sales were rising accordingly
with all this new exposure.
No question that Nike Basketball,
including Air Jordan,
and including the rest of it,
would not be where it is without Sonny Vaccaro.
Phil Knight may not want to admit it.
Sonny Vaccaro built it.
He and Rob Strasser together built what is today
known as Nike Basketball.
♪♪
Vaccaro: You know, I'm gonna give you a surprise.
I'm gonna show you the one priceless thing
that Michael Jordan gave to me.
He was playing the Los Angeles Lakers
the year that they won the championship.
And Howard White called me, and says,
"Michael left you a pair of shoes."
And what do I get?
This is the famous shoe when he hurt his toe
against the Lakers, playing for the world championship,
that he wore that night.
And he gave them to me.
In my opinion, the most priceless Jordan shoes,
because we know there's only one pair of the ones
he wore in that game.
Announcer: And the Bulls do not have any timeouts remaining.
Craig Hodges, a three point specialist, has checked in.
Here's Jordan on the pull up.
Yes!
And the game is tied at 92 with 3:04 seconds remaining.
Alright, Marv, one thing is gonna bother the Bulls.
Just during that last play, Michael Jordan hurt
the tip of his big toe.
They've taken it out, and taken a look at it,
and it's gonna be painful, but he'll try to go with it.
Vaccaro: In the mid 1980s -- 82, 83 I guess,
Nike was gonna finally sign a pro player
that was gonna be a signature shoe --
which was the new term at that time.
And it was a very good draft class at 1984,
very good draft class.
And it came down to selecting somebody.
So, they asked me, "What do I do?"
And I just said, "Give it to the kid."
If you're gonna name a shoe after a high flier,
how in the hell can you give it two or three?
There's only one chief.
The famous phrase was, "Will you bet your job?"
I said, "Give it all to Jordan.
He has what you want."
Announcer: Gordie to Jordan. Breaks out on him.
Good coverage, defensively. He still hit it.
Oh, what presence of mind.
Announcer #2: It's amazing what the freshman can do.
Lazenby: Nike's executives decided to plow their entire budget
into this young Michael Jordan,
who had never played an NBA game.
Knight: And we didn't even know who Jordan was.
He played for North Carolina, which was a Dean Smith school.
Dean Smith was a Converse guy.
So, we assumed all his guys were gonna go to Converse.
Well, Sonny convinced us that we could get this guy.
And so, he set about to go get him.
At one point, they wanted to bring Michael out to Beaverton,
sort of like college recruit.
They wanted to have a campus visit -- except for one thing.
Michael didn't want to go.
He said, "David, I have no interest in Nike.
I don't know anything about Nike.
If you want to go see Nike, like you go."
I said, "Well, I don't need to see Nike.
But you can't make an intelligent informed decision
until you see the campus, and see what they have to offer,
and see what the people are like,
and what the product is like."
He turned me down. So, I went to his parents.
I said, "Look, it's the very first thing ever
I'm asking him to do
since he picked me to work with him.
You've got to help me.
We can't work together if he's not gonna at least visit."
They said, "David, don't worry. He'll be on the plane."
Knight: The brand that he really wanted to sign with was Adidas.
He had worn Adidas all through college, except in the games,
'cause he had to wear Converse in the games.
The problem was, Adidas never asked him to come to Germany
for a presentation, or anything.
Years later, when I went to Adidas, I asked them,
I said, "Why on earth didn't you sign Michael Jordan?"
They said they had no idea
who he was, or what they'd do with him.
If he wanted shoes, they'd be more than happy
to give him shoes.
But they weren't gonna pay him any money.
We went to all the companies,
and instead of making a proposal,
I basically said to them,
"We're going to let you meet with Michael, and explain,
if he picked you, what can you do for him?"
Which is a really different kind of a concept.
Instead of asking what the player can do
for the company, you know,
we ask what the company can do for the player.
And truthfully, most of the companies
weren't prepared for that.
Converse, at the time, they were the official shoe of the NBA.
And their pitch to him was "We're going to treat you
just like everybody else."
Which they thought was a great pitch
because they had so many great players.
I was looking for something more creative, and unique.
So, in terms of Nike,
Sonny said to me, like, "What's important to you?"
And I said to him, "I know this is gonna sound really crazy,
but I want you to treat him like he's a tennis player.
I want him to have his own line of shoes and clothes.
I want to have commercials.
I want you to market him like he's playing
an individual sport."
People thought that wouldn't work in team sports.
And we set out to prove that it would work.
Prior to Jordan, the endorsement business --
particularly the basketball endorsement business --
was pretty much team-orientated.
Converse had Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird.
All three of those guys wore the same shoe.
They wore Converse shoes.
Basketball shoes in America were sort of a closed business.
Converse, which had the Chuck Taylors,
the canvas and rubber shoes,
they'd had the business for so long.
There were no great endorsement deals.
Converse simply gave the Celtics and other NBA teams --
a lot of NBA teams had to pay for their shoes,
but they simply gave them,
so that they would have shoes to wear,
and fans would see them, and magazines
would take their photographs.
And it was a nice little business,
but it wasn't a big-money business.
Stern: Converse had all of our players,
but they were not too keen on marketing.
And then, when Michael came along,
Nike understood that this was
an opportunity to use his connection
to the league, and his prowess as a basketball player,
as a stepping stone to grow the industry.
♪♪
There are obviously NBA players who had shoe contracts.
But that was all relatively restrained.
You know, a lot of them were for $9,000 or $10,000.
Kareem was probably getting in the neighborhood
of $100,000 a year.
Hill: It wasn't seen as something where athletes were necessarily
shaping culture the way shoes shape culture now.
And so, this idea that there was gonna be
this whole marketplace of athletes pedaling shoes
was just kind of unheard of,
and to some degree, considered to be ridiculous.
Pre-Jordan it was, you know, "Here's our shoe.
You're endorsing it. We'll pay you to do that."
And that's basically where it ends.
They would be in commercials.
They would maybe get a shoe in their color.
But it was nothing special.
It's reinforced for me.
And me.
Hey, maybe it was made for both of us.
Must be magic.
Now that's who this shoe was made for.
[ All laugh ]
Announcer: The Converse Star Tech, with the unique uni-saddle design.
You had Larry Bird and Magic Johnson with Converse.
You had Dr. J with Converse.
I mean, Dr. J was the first superstar.
♪ Hey, hey, Dr. J ♪
He was the first elevation of the sneaker game,
wearing Dr. J Converses.
♪ Are you a member of the human race ♪
♪ Hey, Dr. J, are you wearing magic shoes? ♪
Announcer: He's wearing Converse, the shoes of the stars.
Kent: But if you really want to look at it,
the guy who changed the game was Clyde,
because he was the first coolest basketball player.
He was the guy you wanted to be like.
He was the guy you wanted to dress like.
♪♪
When you saw him you saw the mink coats,
you saw the Rolls-Royces,
he looked like the hustlers.
He looked like a superhero.
And then, he has his name in gold on the side of a sneaker.
So, everything else after that was a byproduct of him
being the coolest first.
But it's like the player had to be cool, as well.
Like, was Magic Johnson cool?
Not really.
Was Larry Bird cool?
Was Abdul-Jabbar cool?
Not really.
But then, Michael Jordan is semi-cool.
But then, his sneaker becomes a character, and then that's cool.
So, he reluctantly agreed.
Knight: He comes to Oregon.
And then, we started showing him the things
that we wanted to do with him,
including making a red, white, and black shoe.
And he said, "So, you want me to play in this?"
We said "Yeah. That's the idea. You play in the game,
because they see you playing the game, they buy the shoe."
We played a tape using the Pointer Sisters song "Jump."
with a highlight reel of him,
And at the end, we showed the wings
and the Jordan trademark.
But mostly, what we had was, we had a program.
We were gonna make Michael Jordan
a marketing superstar.
♪♪
He was impressed with the boldness of the idea.
And we went to dinner that night with his parents.
And at the end of the dinner, his mother leaned over and said,
"Don't worry about it Michael will be wearing Nike."
So, the deal was a five-year deal.
Michael got a certain amount of guaranteed money
over a five-year period.
On top of that, he got a very large annuity
that would start paying him
after he retired from basketball --
over $1 million a year.
And he obviously got royalties on the shoe.
And it was a deal that, actually,
I believe, that we proposed to Michael,
that they didn't propose to us.
We proposed to Michael to sort of take the price down,
how much cash we'd actually have to put out.
Falk: I asked Nike what their expectations were.
And their expectations were, in the five-year deal,
by the end of year three, they'd hope to sell $3 million
worth of shoes heading into year four.
That was their expectation.
And they sold $126 million the first year.
Where I think we made a mistake is, we didn't put a cap on it,
and we didn't say "Okay, after so many thousands of pairs,
the royalty rate goes down."
The thinking was, "Look, if he sold that many shoes, great."
As it turned out, that's what happened.
They sold so many shoes they didn't know what to do with it,
and Michael made a lot of money.
Falk: By the end of year three, they'd hope to sell $3 million
worth of shoes heading into year four.
That was their expectation.
And they sold $126 million the first year.
Where I think we made a mistake is, we didn't put a cap on it,
and we didn't say "Okay, after so many thousands of pairs,
the royalty rate goes down."
The thinking was, "Look, if he sold that many shoes, great."
As it turned out, that's what happened.
They sold so many shoes they didn't know what to do with it,
and Michael made a lot of money.
Falk: Now, if I would have known that, I probably would have asked them
to pay him a dollar a year and 50/50 on the royalties.
Now, had we done that,
maybe they wouldn't have pushed the line.
The most important aspect of his deal
wasn't the money or the royalties.
I forced them to spend $1 million.
in the first six months to promote him.
I think we agreed that we would pay him
close to $1 million,
and that we would put close to $1 million into marketing.
And then, the fun stuff started.
And the fun stuff was, "How are we gonna market this guy?"
We all talked about how he used to soar in the air.
David Falk, to his credit, said "I've got a name for this thing.
it should be called 'Air Jordan.'"
Rob immediately wants to use the name.
I said, "Well, why don't we think about it for a little while.
There's an airline that's called "Air Jordan.'"
But no, Rob was going with Air Jordan.
Michael always tells me it's the first
and the last great idea I ever had.
After that, I went and saw him in Washington D.C.
In that conversation, he told me that he didn't want to wear
red, white, and black.
And when I asked him, I said, "Well, what's the reason?"
He said, "They're the devil's colors."
I said, "Well, they're the Chicago Bull's colors,
so you better go talk to the guy that owns the Chicago Bulls.
'cause I can't change them."
I mean he wanted to wear Carolina blue,
which was the color of his school.
And I said, "We'll make you a pair,
you can wear them on Saturdays.
But you're in red, white, and black.
You know, that's just the way it's got to be."
Jackson: The ideology behind doing this came a long time
before the shoe was first launched.
You know, these conversations with Jordan
getting his own shoe came his rookie year.
But they waited before they actually launched it.
And the lead up to that was beautiful,
because what they did is put the shoes on Jordan,
so you could see him playing.
Bengtson: You know, the build-up of that shoe before it released
at retail was five or six months long,
which was fairly unheard of back then.
And I think the idea of a new shoe model
being such a big deal,
and being such a big deal to people other than athletes,
was something really different.
Knight: The first time he wore the shoes,
he wore them in New York
at an exhibition game -- a pre-season game.
They're out doing their warm-up drills,
and all of a sudden, there's a bunch of kids start gathering.
And they're all pointing at his shoes.
David Falk happens to be sitting in the arena,
and he wants to know what all this is about.
"What's going on here?"
And they tell him, "Oh, Jordan's got on these crazy shoes."
And sure enough, the shoes get banned.
At that time, David Stern, who was head of the NBA,
had a rule that only white footwear
was allowed on the court.
Stern saw these shoes, and said, "That's against the rules.
You can't do it."
Bengtson: The original Air Jordan was just a project
that was kind of unprecedented in the way Nike worked.
You know, they signed Jordan that summer, and wanted to get
a signature shoe on his foot in that first season,
which really compressed the amount of time
they had to get this shoe done.
So, in the meantime, he had to wear something else.
and what he ended up wearing was the Nike Air Ship.
And that was the shoe
that originally drew the ire of the NBA,
and basically banning the shoe.
Stern: We told Michael and Nike that, whatever shoe he was wearing
didn't conform, so would they please change it.
And Rob said, "So, what are you gonna do, fine him?"
He goes "Yes. I'm gonna fine him."
And Rob said, "Go ahead and fine him.
Nike will cover him."
It became the shoe that was banned by the NBA,
with the implication that it was
because it made Michael such a good basketball player.
Announcer: On September 15th, Nike created a revolutionary
new basketball shoe.
On October 18th, the NBA threw them out of the game.
Fortunately, the NBA can't stop you from wearing them.
♪♪
Lazenby: Nike officials reacted with glee to this,
because that meant that, if something is outlawed,
it becomes very precious.
Williams: Typically, when you brand a product, you start with
what we call "functional benefits of consumption."
You want to give people a sense that, again,
this somehow solves a problem
or it somehow makes you better at something you're doing.
And that was the first thing we did with the Jordan brand,
was "Hey, we gave you the sense that you would be
a better basketball player if you were to wear these shoes,
and that the NBA band these shoes
because it gave Michael Jordan
some type of competitive advantage."
And then, you look on television,
and you see this man doing things
that you'd never seen an athlete do, ever, you believe in it.
They gave Nike the best publicity ever
when they banned the Air Jordan,
which only made them hotter in the streets.
Knight: There's no question of the fact that the shoes were banned
helped the sale of the shoes.
Kids like that stuff.
Particularly the inner city kid, he loves that stuff.
"I'm wearing something I'm not supposed to be wearing.
Perfect."
[ Laughs ]
Couldn't be better.
And, all of a sudden, overnight,
it was just like everybody wanted them.
They were being sold on the street corners
for hundreds of dollars.
Knight The first time we showed Footlocker, for example --
which is the biggest retailer in America --
they only wanted 5,000 pairs for all their stores.
Within a week, they called, and wanted 150,000 pairs.
-Nike! -Adidas!
Competition is the name of the game at Footlocker,
with the biggest selection of big names ever assembled.
So, whether your game is serious or social,
we'll find the right shoe for you.
You know, you don't tell people not to do something,
because they want to do it -- particularly that age group.
And that just shows you the personality
of the kid who's buying the shoe.
He wanted to break the rules.
Kent: The shoes were anti-establishment,
you know what I'm saying?
So, the hood is anti-establishment.
It's almost like they were made to be for each other.
Knight: The ban helped, no question about it.
I mean Rob Strasser wrote David a thank-you note.
And as Rob was leaving his office,
he said, "I have one thing to ask that you do."
And Rob turns around, and says, "What?"
"Can you send me a pair of the banned shoes?
My son wants them. He thinks I'm a jerk."
[ Laughs ]
Bengtson: The Air Jordan was something that kind of transcended
all these different borders
that hadn't really been transcended before.
The fact that it comes out after he plays in the All-Star game,
after he's in his first dunk contest,
by the time that shoe finally hit the market,
they were just gone.
Knight: I think we sold over a million pairs of shoes in one year,
which is -- in those days was a lot.
It wasn't started slowly and built to a big fire.
It started as a giant fire.
I mean, it just was -- there was a big fire from day one.
Flight Attendant: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to flight 23.
Please make sure your seat belts are securely fashioned,
and extinguish all smoking materials.
Knight: Then, we had done it for the first year.
Then everybody's going, "What are we gonna do now?"
It became so big that we were worried about it --
just the air would just go out of it.
Bengtson: You know, if the Air Jordan 1 was a shoe
that Nike had to get together in a hurry,
and really rush to get to market,
and get on Jordan's feet,
the Air Jordan 2 was kind of the opposite.
The Air Jordan 2 came along, and it was like,
that shoe was pumping, you know?
It was fly. It was sleek.
It was well-built. It was well-designed.
It was the first shoe that didn't have
the Nike swoosh on it.
♪♪
That was a game-changer,
you know, in terms of, like, my community.
You know, for sneaker connoisseurs and ball players,
like, the Jordan 2 was, like,
"Oh, okay. They got it right now."
Announcer: Air Jordan. It's all in the imagination.
♪♪
The Air Jordan 2, when it came out, it was a risk
that most sneaker companies back then didn't take,
or wouldn't take.
It was almost twice as expensive.
It was made in Italy.
Bengtson: And you could almost look at the Air Jordan 2 --
even though it came out in 1986, a full decade
before Jordan split off into its own brand --
being sort of the first sign
that Air Jordan was a thing in and of itself,
that didn't necessarily need that Nike swoosh.
Knight: Well, here's the first poster we did with Michael Jordan,
which basically was to announce that he is arriving in Chicago.
This is my favorite shoe of his.
And this is the Chicago skyline,
and he's obviously flying over the skyline into the city.
This was one of the interesting things about Michael Jordan.
He gave me my own poster for Christmas.
Maybe that's why he's a billionaire.
Now, the brilliant thing about Nike
is that they are a marketing company,
first and foremost.
Their relationship with Wieden+Kennedy,
and the ideas behind that is what makes them special.
And Wieden+Kennedy really hadn't stepped in
as a marketing group behind pushing Jordan.
But starting with 3, they did.
A lot of the things that made Jordan special
is that the grassroots aspects of how they approached things.
So, Wieden+Kennedy tapped into that.
What's happening at the grassroots level,
as far as, like, you know,
African American society is concerned?
Who's that new cat? Who has that fresh breath?
What's that new visual? What's that new voice?
And their new voice was in a character
that Spike Lee had created.
You know, when he did with his first feature film,
"She's Gotta Have It."
You know, is there anyway to tap into him"
"She's Gotta Have It" was a love story
not only between Mars Blackmon and Nola Darling,
but between Mars Blackmon and his Air Jordans.
And he sort of couldn't decide between the two.
He kind of wanted to have both.
You know, I think a lot of kids in the eighties
could identify with that.
He knew that before a lot of other people,
you know, which I think is why
Spike was able to become as successful as he did.
And -- you know, and I think Nike and Wieden+Kennedy,
and I think it was Jim Riswold at Wieden, who recognized that.
Riswold: It was 1987,
and Bill Davenport and I were down in L.A.
finishing our first spot with Michael Jordan.
And back then, all spots with Nike
seemed to be "show the athlete sweat,
and put a product shot at the end,
and call it a day."
Announcer: Today at Nike, we know even more.
We developed one of the most sophisticated sport
research labs in the world to let us see,
in detail, the peculiarities of style,
the dynamics of foot strike.
And at Nike, we're putting that knowledge to work,
making shoes that actually help athletes to run faster.
Riswold: So, we were down there, doing that commercial.
And we went to a movie.
And there was a trailer at the beginning of the move
with a guy we'd never heard of called "Spike Lee,"
selling tube socks on the sidewalk.
Three for $5.
Hi. I'm Spike Lee.
When I'm not directing, I do this.
It pays the rent, puts food on the table,
butter on my whole wheat bread.
Anyway, I have this new comedy coming out.
It's a very funny film -- "She's Gotta Have It."
Riswold: That was a great trailer.
So, you get back to Portland, and that movie is playing.
And it's about three men pursuing the same woman.
And one of those men is the Mars Blackmon character.
And he finally gets the time to sleep with
the woman of his dreams, Nola Darling.
And while doing so, he won't take off his Air Jordans.
Blackmon: Stop. Stop. No, stop. Stop.
Knight: He's boffing this girl in bed, and he's wearing Air Jordans.
And I went "Great," you know, "nice promo."
And Bill and I look at each other like
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
They said, "We ought to do a TV commercial with him."
We called Spike up.
And that was back when he answered his own phone.
"Would you be interested in playing your role,
and directing Michael Jordan
in a series of Mars Blackmon and Michael Jordan commercials?"
And I think we could hear him pee his pants
on the other end of the line.
"Do I get to direct him, too?"
-Nola? -Yes, Mars.
Is it because he do a vicious high-flying 360 slam dunk?
-No, Mars. -Because he's taller than me?
No, Mars.
Because he's loved, adored, and worshiped by millions?
-No, Mars. -Nola, what is it?
It's because he's got the new Air Jordans, Mars.
Oh sweat, oh sweat, oh sweat.
Nike, you got to hook me up.
Spike Lee and the Mars and Mike campaign
of the 1980s,
playing the character Mars Blackmon, of course,
from "She's Gotta Have It," played an integral part of
making Michael Jordan believable
while still having that sense of integrity.
And I think Nike knew that.
Bengtson: You know, you had this ready-made character,
you know, and he could come in and do these commercials,
which were amazing for their day.
You know, it's like, you go back and look at, say,
Converse, with the Weapon.
They had all these guys, like, do a rap commercial.
♪ For the kind of moves that never fail ♪
♪ The Weapon's the choice of Kevin McHale ♪
♪ The same is true for Mark Aguirre ♪
♪ When I wear Weapons, I'm on fire ♪
♪ But what can the weapons do for King? ♪
♪ Why, I can do just about anything ♪
♪ You already know what they did for me ♪
ALL: What?
♪ I walked away with the MVP ♪
Announcer: Converse Weapon --
The number-one weapon in the NBA.
And it's like, you're just being too literal, almost. You know?
And Spike and Mars, they're coming out
doing these black-and-white ads,
and like, they were debuted during all-star weekend.
And, you know, I remember getting ready
to watch the NBA all-star game,
and, like, I was excited about the dunk contest.
But I was super excited
that there would be a new Air Jordan commercial.
Oh, money, money, why you want to do that to me?
Why you leave me hanging?
I got it.
Oh.
The big thing about what that campaign taught us was, again,
that you could have fun with this stuff,
and to look at the athlete as, like --
this sounds crass, but as the product.
What makes this person unique?
Why could only Jordan be in that campaign with Mars Blackmon?
Yo, Mike, what made you the best player in the universe?
Is it the vicious dunks?
-No, Mars. -Is it the haircut?
-No, Mars. -Is it the shoes?
No, Mars.
Knight: The big thing in marketing of these shoes
is that you've got to let the kid know that you get it.
But you can't do it in an obvious, stupid way.
You've got to do it in a subliminal way.
You sure it's not the shoes?
I'm sure, Mars.
-What about the shoes? -No, Mars.
Using Spike Lee, that's what that did.
And you just knew right there, just to see that,
and that magic, you just went, "This is gonna work.
We're blessed."
That's exactly what I told Wieden
when I called him after we were done shooting this.
I said, "Wieden all I can tell you is, 'we're blessed.'"
Jackson: And the nine commercials they did for the 3,
the 4, and the 5 -- brilliant.
It's just brilliant marketing, man.
You know, and for Wieden+Kennedy
to let Spike just do his thing.
You know, and let Spike and Mars and Michael
develop a relationship.
It worked. It worked beautifully.
Yo, professor, how does Mike defy gravity?
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?
Michael Jordan overcomes the acceleration of gravity
by the application of his muscle power in the vertical plain,
thus producing a low altitude Earth orbit.
A what? -Do you know what I mean?
Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?
Knight: What the hell is Nike doing?
This wasn't Spike 40 years later,
winning academy awards,
and becoming one of the greatest directors in the world.
This was Spike as a young guy, you know, coming right off of
"Do The Right Thing," and all these things,
where America, again, was in unrest.
We're in now the eighties.
And we're putting a black guy on television
to sell shoes to white America.
Most sneaker heads will look at those spots,
and say those are the best basketball commercials ever.
And I really think those ads reshaped Nike advertising.
And I think it introduced Nike into popular culture,
rather than just the top pyramid of, you know,
high-performance athletes.
I mean, this was the Nike for the rest of us.
See, that's the thing that really happened, was Spike Lee.
Spike Lee, in my opinion,
is the father of what you call this sneaker culture.
He would be the father.
Because no Spike, no commercials about the shoes.
Let me repeat myself.
This you can buy.
You cannot do this.
Can. Can't.
Can.
Kent: It ain't the shoes, it's Michael Jordan, but no.
You believe, now, it's the shoes.
Spike Lee happened.
When he got in "Do The Right Thing,"
and said "my sneakers are broke,"
the sneakers were a character.
Yo!
Man: Yeah?
Yo, you almost knocked me down, man.
The word is "excuse me."
Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry.
Not only just that but now you stood on my brand-new [bleep]
Air Jordans that I just [bleep] bought.
And that's all you can say, is "excuse me"?
-What you [bleep] serious? -Yeah, I'm serious.
I'll [bleep] you up quick two times.
Two times.
Who told you to step on my sneakers?
Yo, man, your Jordans are [bleep] up.
Damn, man, you might have to throw them kicks out.
"You broke my Jordans 'cause you stepped on them."
Not "You broke my sneakers," "You broke my Jordans."
The Jordans became a character.
Knight: I asked Michael later about the Spike Lee time.
He liked the guy. He thought he was okay.
He didn't particularly think the commercials were any good,
but he thought the guy was funny.
Action. Spike Lee.
No one did for marketing
what Nike and Michael did for marketing.
Nobody.
Bengtson: I mean, he became the face of everything.
Falk: We weren't trying to do anything
other than take advantage of his personality.
So, his first three deals,
as someone who starred in the Olympics,
were Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Chevrolet.
I mean, you can't get any more all-American than that.
And the fact that he was African American
broke all the barriers.
Williams: Jordan was this 6'6" black man with a bald head,
very dark-skinned, dark-complected.
That same guy without the name Michael Jordan
walking down the streets of suburban America
would have been seen as a threat.
And so, how were they able to make him not intimidating?
So, they had these kind of Jordan rules of marketing in,
you know, the way they showed him.
They embodied why Jordan was able to penetrate,
and get into white America, because he made white America
feel as if he was just like them.
And I think Nike, Hanes, Ballpark, Gatorade
did a fabulous job of really crafting this brand
to a lot of white people to accept him into their homes.
Williams: He made white America feel as if he was just like them.
And I think Nike, Hanes, Ballpark, Gatorade
did a fabulous job of really crafting this brand
to a lot of white people to accept him into their homes.
Woman: Michael Jordan used to be a superstar.
Now I'm an Ultra Star.
-Ultra soft... -Is Ultra Star.
-Ultra clean... -Is Ultra Star.
Announcer: The ultra in men's haircare.
-Ultra sexy.
-He's Ultra Star.
Jackson: You know, so to see a young black dude come into that space,
and be able to sell America about everything,
and make it believable was,
you know, areas uncharted for us.
You know, Ali was huge, you know, for us.
Jackie Robinson was huge for us.
Reggie Jackson was massive, you know, for a black community.
But at some point, there was still a disconnect
between, you know, general America --
especially white America -- and those athletes.
You know, a lot of times, you had to remove the blackness
for them to remove the blackness
in order for them to see this person
as being what they would say just American.
Ever need to rent a car fast?
♪ Nobody does it better ♪
In order for America to accept that black person,
there had to be some level of this person
conforming to the other side,
and distancing themselves
from their quote, unquote "blackness."
Nobody has more of what it takes to get you
into a new LTV or other fine car faster.
For the non-African American side of this country
to accept him, and find comfort in who he was.
And I think it also came with a sense of authenticity
that Michael didn't try to sell himself
out of who he was as a person.
You know, Michael never tried to be something that he wasn't.
He was like, "You're gonna accept me
for who I am in America."
And I think America somehow tapped into that sensibility.
We tapped into this authenticity.
You can say a lot of things about Michael Jordan.
He is by no means Malcolm X, alright?
He chose to be silent on things.
But you never sensed that he rejected being black.
Like, you felt like he was very proud of being black.
And while I know Jordan will never be considered
to be some kind of revolutionary,
what he did, in terms of global marketing,
and giving other black athletes a blueprint to do that,
was quite revolutionary.
And showing other brands that you can put a black face
on a Fortune 500 company, and make a ton of money.
I don't want to say his marking is overstated,
because, obviously, that was a big deal.
But at the same time, you know, I think it can't be said enough,
like, what he did on the court
still was what mattered more than anything.
If he didn't perform on the court the way he did,
those shoes wouldn't have sold.
♪♪
Bengtson: The fact that he came out, and was as good as he was,
and was as photogenic as he was,
and was as, you know, transcendent as he was,
that's what made all the difference.
Those brilliant ads don't translate
with Michael Jordan coming off the bench.
It sure as hell made my job easy.
I mean, you just watch what he did,
and then you make a spot about it.
♪♪
Jackson: If you look at the year Michael had in '88,
when they released the 3,
that quietly can be one of the greatest seasons
anybody has ever had.
You don't win MVP,
scoring title, Defensive player of the Year,
All-star MVP, you know what I'm saying?
There's nothing else that guy didn't win that year,
with the exception of a finals MVP and a championship.
We had never seen a season like that.
Everything he was doing correlated to those shoes.
And we bought into that because what was the tag line
they were selling us?
"Is it the shoes? Is it the shoes?"
Mars Blackmon keep ingraining that in our head.
"Is it the shoes?"
And that concept played into his entire career,
as far as his shoes were concerned.
What did Michael do in those particular shoes?
And the moments he would have in certain shoes
became their own quote, unquote, "phenomenon."
Every ring he won attached themselves to the shoes
he was wearing when he won those rings.
In the early nineties, he began challenging for the NBA title.
He began winning on a big level.
♪♪
Jackson: What Michael Jordan was able to do
on the backs of Julius Erving and Bird and Magic
was take it to that Babe Ruth place,
where basketball basically had become ingrained
in the country's entire consciousness
to put it in a stratosphere
that we didn't know this game could exist.
That's what he was able to do.
Telander: I mean, when I was following the Bulls, there, at the end --
you know, I've been around rock bands too,
but when I'm following, there, at the end,
it was like what the Beetles were -- people screaming.
And then, you had Michael Jordan.
You had Paul and John rolled into one.
Jackson: It was equivalent to, like, you know,
what is the Isley Brothers' next album?
What's the next Stevie Wonder project?
What's Michael Jackson gonna follow up,
you know, "Thriller" with?
That's what Jordan was like.
You know, alright, it was on that level.
You know, it was sort of a time when a lot of
African American contributions became much more mainstream.
You know, you had Prince. You had Michael Jackson.
You know, and Michael Jordan,
he was basketball's version of that.
Williams: You saw Jordan everywhere.
He had so many brand associations.
And so, it made you want to be like Jordan.
And so, you had kids trying to emulate him,
you know, in everything they did --
not just on the basketball courts,
on the streets, but also in their life.
And the Jordan brand, the sneaker,
it really allowed us to be able to do that
for the first time.
Telander: We recognized something in Michael Jordan instinctively,
that this was beauty, and that I wanted some of that.
How can I get close to it?
How can I get ahold of this?
So, with this rampant consumerism,
the shoes that had never been marketed this way,
the advertisement they had,
you said, "Damn, man, I can't be Michael Jordan
but I can have this piece of what he represents."
Williams: I mean, you think about its impact on even,
you know, pop culture and hip hop.
I mean, it's hard press to find any rapper's catalog,
and he doesn't mention Jordan at some point.
You think about probably the most beloved black sitcom
of the 1990s, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."
Right there in the opening credits, what is he wearing?
You know, the Jordan shoe, I believe it was the Jordan 5.
♪ Now, this is a story all about how ♪
♪ My life got flipped turned upside down ♪
♪ And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there ♪
♪ I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air ♪
And also, what had happened in the last 20 years
are the shoe collectors.
And it became fanatical to get them.
Powell: So, the retro is really based on products
that emulate the original product.
We don't make shoes like we did in 1985 any longer.
So, we can't make the shoe exactly like it was
with the Jordan 1.
But we make shoes that look like the Jordan 1.
So, when we talk about a retro shoe,
it's a shoe that's very close to the original product.
And the bulk of the Jordan sales were coming out of retro.
I mean, I'm confounded by the rapidity of the whole thing.
I believe I'm the biggest collector of Air Jordan shoes
in the United States.
Currently, I have 1,175 shoes in my collection.
They start in a corner back there,
and they just come all the way around by the numbers.
I have some spaces in between.
If I pick up new shoes, I won't have to just move
all of the cases all the way around.
But my favorites are the 8s.
I call them "the great 8s."
That was his greatest playoff season of the six championships.
Back in 1985, I was in college.
I had watched MJ from 1981, and he went to the NBA.
And then, I saw these red and white shoes.
That was the first shoe I bought with my own money.
I wear them on the first of every year.
They are from 1985.
$65.
That was the price. But back then, $65,
this was the most expensive basketball shoe in 1985.
Everything that has come after these was because of this.
And you know, I have the Jumpman tattoo on my arm.
It's his style of play. It's his passion.
And it's also what he did as a basketball player
in these shoes, you know, is what means a lot to me.
And for me, it's more than just the shoes, you know?
It's the memorabilia, too.
I have the Wheaties boxes, and...
[ Rattles ]
I never took the seal off of it.
It was just a collector's piece to me.
And now, I have 18 different boxes,
from the mini boxes to the big boxes.
And I've been offered tens of thousands of dollars
just for these cereal boxes.
Original Gatorade bottle.
This has been here since 1992.
Never popped the top on it.
Wouldn't recommend drinking this.
I've been doing this for, you know, 33-plus years.
I don't get free stuff.
This is stuff that I've bought.
This is all blood, sweat, and tears.
This is something that I've taken on since 1985,
that I like to do.
I like to change shoes.
Sometimes, I change my shoes three or four times a day,
just so I can get a chance to wear everything.
But 1,175 pairs, I might not get to wear a shoe again
for three years.
The insurance policy for my entire collection,
everything -- shoes, memorabilia, everything --
is over $1 million.
It's just so much history and passion behind collecting shoes
that I'm in it till the end.
I'm not gonna stop.
Salman: I mean, it's addiction.
It's -- You know, anybody who does stuff like that,
it's partially addiction.
You know, it could be good, it could be bad,
but it's an addiction.
It becomes a habit.
It becomes, like, you know, a contest,
and a competition for a lot of these people.
♪♪
[ Speaks Japanese ]
Ruddy: For sure, I haven't worn any of the Jordan 1s here.
My intent was not to wear them.
My intent was to make a line-up of the shoes,
and to have a nice display in my home
and so that I could watch them after work,
like you watch TV, and just enjoy.
The addiction was fueled because of Jordan.
Jordan is an amazing guy.
When you look at this box,
it's hard to keep a box like this,
for 30 years, in this condition.
That's the original paper.
You see?
You can smell it. You can smell time.
You can smell history.
Now, when I tell you I spend $8,000 just for these two shoes.
Yeah, when I have a set back, I realize, yeah,
it's out of control to spend that much money.
Yeah.
It's this modern American story.
I mean, you have -- in the turn of the 19th century you had,
you know, your C.W. Post for Post Cereal
and your John and Will Kellogg,
and how they created Kellogg's, and your Milton Hershey's.
You say Hershey bar, but you're talking about Milton Hershey.
You're talking about a man.
You' talking about Ford, you're talking about a man.
You think about all these brands that we consume,
and we don't even make them synonymous
with the people that created them, but they are.
And now, for the first time,
black people have that with the Jordan brand.
And so, I think, what we were able to see
is something in modern day that we've never seen before.
Can you really name another black founded
controlled brand like that?
That is just synonymous with one name,
that lives and breathes on it's own?
I think that's why the African Americans
love it so much, and they covet it,
because it's kind of our brand.
Lazenby: People all over the globe,
obviously, are collecting these shoes.
And what happens when things are collected?
It drives up the value.
And now, people are taking these Air Jordans,
they're wearing them with tuxedos.
Something had happened, and it all filtered through
the world of Nike
and the world of Michael Jordan himself.
And if you're a kid, your status symbol was your $100 sneakers.
You're not buying something like that to hide it.
The shoes gained, very quickly, a huge street value
in American culture.
And so, suddenly, it spawned violence and robbery.
Hill: The demand of his product,
and products with his name on it,
had reached a point where crimes were basically being committed
to obtain product that he was selling.
Telander: There's always been style, and there's always been people
wanting to keep up with the Jones's.
I mean, you can go back to caveman era,
you know, somebody's got a cooler cheetah-skin belt on,
or loin cloth.
If you want that, you might take a club, and whack him for it.
But here we are, in a civilized society,
and the Jumpman logo of the Air Jordans
had become so important as a status symbol --
kids, teenagers are seeing this status symbol,
and they're actually killing each other for these --
for shoes.
I mean, the thing I remember best
is still Rick Telander's cover story in Sports Illustrated.
I feel like the sneakers were a focal point
because it was something relatively new.
Telander: I think I've got it in here somewhere.
I keep all my Sports Illustrated files up here.
So, that was 1990.
Well, I remember the shocking aspect of this cover.
You have to look at it.
It's so dark, and you can't tell what you're looking at.
And then, you realize it's a guy with a gun,
he's grabbing the shoes that are hanging over the shoulder.
I haven't looked at this article in, I would say, 24 years.
It's mind-blowing.
I mean, it really is.
Is it the shoes? Money? It's got to be the shoes.
It's Mars Blackmon to Michael Jordan in a Nike commercial.
"For 15-year-old Michael Eugene Thomas,
it definitely was the shoes.
A ninth grader at Meade Senior High School,
Thomas was found strangled on May 2nd, 1989.
Charged with first-degree murder was James David Martin, 17,
a basketball buddy."
The kid was murdered, and left in the woods
for a pair of two-week old shoes.
It's just...
I don't know.
It's, you know, within it is something so primitive
and wrong that it -- it's just obvious.
But on the other side of it is, what led you to this?
What led you to think that that status symbol could possibly,
possibly be worth somebody's life?
Like so many problems,
there's an answer that seems very simple.
Throw the kid away.
Put him jail, throw the key away.
And there's answers that are very complex.
And it's always easy to take the easy answer,
and just crack down more on the law.
But how about solving the problems
that lead somebody to this in the first place,
that would feel so dispossessed that they would think
that a life is worth somebody's shoes.
Telander: What led you to this?
What led you to think that that status symbol could possibly,
possibly be worth somebody's life.
Like so many problems,
there's an answer that seems very simple.
Throw the kid away.
Put him jail, throw the key away.
And there's answers that are very complex.
And it's always easy to take the easy answer,
and just crack down more on the law.
But how about solving the problems
that lead somebody to this in the first place,
that would feel so dispossessed that they would think
that a life is worth somebody's shoes.
So, it's really a story about scarcity.
The idea is that the brand sells out every Saturday morning
when shoes are released, and consumers come back
the next Saturday for another shot at it.
And it's interesting we're talking about scarcity
with a $3 billion brand.
But they have been able to build this up over time by making sure
that they never had enough supply to meet the demand.
Lazenby: Are Nike officials wringing their hands with glee
over those profits and growth?
Yes.
But that becomes very, very awkward
when you consider the ugly elements of that.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, shoes were just shoes.
And basketball shoes were no more glamorous
than any other piece of sports equipment.
That was before Michael Jordan learned how to fly.
When his success went through the roof,
the shoes he endorsed for Nike went right along with him.
And now, critics say they are flying just a little too high.
Air Jordans are expensive, exclusive, and hard enough
to get that some children lie, steal, even kill for them.
A boy was robbed after school.
It turns out, the bandit was after his shoes.
Woman: Part of the problem is that each store
has a limited amount of about 150 pairs.
Male: Reporter: He saw a gun under the guy's shirt, and then a demand.
Female Reporter: Each pair costs about $180,
but they resale on eBay for almost $500.
A neighbor killed him over a pair of Air Jordans.
He will be buried tomorrow
on what would have been his 17th birthday.
Man: Two young men had come home from Willowbrook Mall.
They had pairs of the new Air Jordan sneakers.
Two men attacked them with guns as they pulled up to this house.
One of them jumped out, ran door to door,
trying to get help, while the other
jumped into the driver's seat,
tried to drive away, but he was shot at least once in the head.
The car careened out of control, hit the side of this house,
ruptured a gas line, and then the gunman got away.
All of this, this attack
was over a pair of those new Jordan shoes.
Retail value $185.
That may be the price of a young man's life.
♪♪
Daisy: My name is Daisy Williams, and this mall here is the mall
that my son went to purchase his Air Jordan tennis shoes.
My son left this mall, headed home,
but he never made it safely home to me.
Four gentlemen followed him in their own vehicle,
and they pulled in front of him,
and got out the car, and demanded the shoes.
They started shooting at him.
They shot my son in the head, and he crashed into a home.
♪♪
This is the scene, right there.
This is -- oh, this is -- this just brings chills to me.
I haven't been here -- I haven't been here in a long time.
There was about 23 shell casings.
The shoes were on the ground.
Again, there were a pair of shoes here.
There were a pair of shoes over there.
If you Google man shot and killed over Air Jordan sneakers,
it's an actual video where it shows my son.
It doesn't show my son sitting in the car,
but it shows the car still running.
It shows the ambulance wheeling him around here,
and putting him in the car.
and you can hear my daughter screaming, like,
"Let us -- please let us get in with you."
[ Indistinct shouting ]
Woman: I was at home.
I had just got off the phone with him,
like five minutes before. Told him I loved him,
And five minutes later,
his friend called me, and told me he got shot.
And when we got to the scene, I just ran up to the car,
and I seen him.
And I just kept saying, "Josh, you got to get up.
It's your sister."
I just kept saying he had to get up.
Daisy: And me and my fiance, his father,
we was standing behind the yellow tape.
And we say "Let's just see, when they put him on the stretcher,
will they put the sheet over him."
'Cause you look at the movies,
if they put that sheet over him, we know he gone.
And they took him out.
They had his face wrapped up.
But they never put the sheets over him.
And I was like, "Okay, my son gonna be okay."
Man: Stay back.
And we followed the ambulance to the hospital.
And at 5:35, they pronounced him dead.
These were the pair of shoes that he was buried in --
the Kilroys.
Me and my mom had to pick out
what he was gonna be buried in.
And my brother never wore a suit and tie,
so it was like, we want him to be buried in something that,
if he was alive, he would, you know, wear.
That would just make me feel happy, I guess,
to be buried in the same shoes that he was buried in.
And Michael Jordan sent us some shoes, and I have those.
Well, it's just one pair.
Man: Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Michael Jordan sent you shoes? -Yes.
But it -- to me, it just was like,
like, if a kid's crying, you give a kid candy,
they're gonna stop crying.
I just felt like that's what it -- that's what it was.
But the shoes that he sent, they were 28s.
They're black and lime green.
When he sent us those, they weren't out yet.
If I was to wear these down the street,
if people look and say "Well, they not even out yet,
and she have them," and then I die,
then my mom has another kid that was buried over --
I mean, that was killed over shoes.
So, I waited until, like, a month
after they came out to wear them.
I'm always going back to these pictures.
This picture was after he purchased his shoes,
and they were in the car.
He actually got out the car, and just took a picture of them.
And they were -- proceeded to head home,
and not realizing they were being followed
at that time, actually.
This is my son's blood in the car.
Looking at the pictures, I -- I just...
If you don't mind, if we could stop for a little bit?
♪♪
Woman: I'm not ready for trial, but I'm just ready for --
for them to see us, and know who Josh was,
and what they took from us.
All over a pair of shoes.
Daisy: Alright. Are y'all ready?
You nervous?
Just take a deep breath.
You know, we doing this for Joshua.
Man: We ask almighty God that you give us the strength.
We ask that you gives us your spirit.
Joshua cannot be here with us today.
We thank you for waking us up, again, once again,
so that we can be here in his absence, and in his stead.
We begin with a Houston murder case making national headlines.
Female Reporter: 22-year-old Joshua Woods was shot and killed
for his new pair of Air Jordans.
Male Reporter: Daisy Williams watched with the rest of us
as the prosecution brought us back to that day in December,
right before Christmas.
He raises the, gun and fires, and then fires and fires
and fires, as the car looses control,
and crashes into the neighbor's house.
I mean, it's just ludicrous to think that anybody would take
another human being's life over pairs of sneakers.
Daisy: My son is not the first one, and I hope and pray
to the good lord that he's the last one.
But we got to do something.
Nike, they have a responsibility in this.
And they have to do something.
And if nothing happens, we'll see more cases like this.
You'll see more mothers and fathers like me.
You'll see more mothers and fathers
like the accused killers.
The Woods family says that they want Nike to reconsider
how they market their Air Jordan sneakers,
so that something like this never happens again.
Man: And for those who don't understand the process
by which Nike markets and sells these Air Jordans,
what they do is, they create a propaganda campaign...
Is it the shoes?
Money, it's got to be the shoes.
...that stirs up the minds of young people,
and makes them want these shoes so bad.
But then, they put out only a few of them.
Man #2: One pair per customer.
And it's like, if you have birds,
let's say, on your porch,
and you throw out a few seeds. Well, what's going to happen?
Those birds are hungry.
If they really want to eat bad enough,
they'll begin fighting one another.
And unfortunately, this propaganda scheme by Nike,
that has been endorsed by Michael Jordan,
is working on so many inner-city youth across America.
And in this particular case, it went so far
that a young man lost his life.
Daisy: That's a good question.
I actually extended an invitation to them
to be here today.
Unfortunately, I don't see them here.
Man: Nike is not here because Nike doesn't care.
Michael Jordan isn't here because he cares even less.
They will take Joshua Woods' money,
but when he loses his life for the very shoes
that he purchased from them,
all of a sudden, we don't hear from them.
In corporate America, unfortunately,
profit is more important than human life.
And maybe that's trickling down
into the younger generation here in America,
why they think that materialism is more important
than human life.
Woman: It just hurts.
'Cause you never think somebody's life
will be taken over a pair of shoes.
And it's like, when my daughter gets older,
and when his son gets older, we have to tell them,
you know, the real story, like, why he was taken away.
And that hurts.
How do you explain to a kid that their father and their uncle
is gone over a pair of shoes?
It doesn't make sense.
Daisy: I was born and raised here in Houston.
My children, my son and my daughter,
was born and raised here.
I didn't ask for this.
This was brought to me.
And most people, they wouldn't have survived this.
I am in no way, shape, or form blaming Nike for my son's death.
But they can say something.
If your son, or if your daughter,
was Joshua Woods,
whatever you would do if that if was your child,
that's what I'm asking you to do.
♪♪
Telander: I thought, when it happened,
that this was likely a -- just a flash point.
But it hasn't passed.
It's as though the Air Jordan, the Jumpman,
has become almost like a symbol.
It symbolizes so much more.
It symbolizes something that can actually make people happy.
It's at the root of all advertising.
It's advertising that worked too well.
Bengtson: I mean, the fact is it's still going on now,
and, you know, it's kind of unfortunate that
Rick wrote that cover story 25 years ago,
and you're still seeing this stuff happen now.
Williams: Jordan's sneakers,
they're jewels in the eyes of young black kids.
And when you have these types of jewels,
and you wear these types of jewels on your feet,
especially in the neighborhoods
where wealth and status is scarce,
but heavily coveted,
you have things like this happen.
Hill: The truth is, when you have people,
especially these people who are within proximity to one another,
in a community that's underserved,
that every signal, every message that they get
is that people don't care about what happens to you.
They don't care about offering you any opportunity
to achieve this American dream, then, you begin to take on,
as they say, the traits of the oppressor.
It becomes sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy,
where nobody else thinks my life is worth anything,
so why should I think somebody else's life is worth something?
And so, unfortunately, things like Jordans
become very big status symbols
in communities of color, and communities
that are historically and presently underserved.
And the value of life is just not as appreciated
when, you know, you're hearing from every corner of society
how much you're not worth.
It's hard for you to look at yourself as worthy,
and certainly see that worth in somebody else.
Jackson: You can't ever look at a place
that's gonna teach you wrong to treat you right.
Our history here in America has not been one of correctness,
as far as treatment is concerned.
So, to ask a subculture inside this business,
you know, model that America has built on our backs,
to a large degree.
All of a sudden, we start wilding out on each other
for that, to ask America to step in.
You know, yeah, Michael Jordan could probably have taken
a stronger stance on this, but at the end of the day,
we're still asking Nike to do something.
Lazenby: The real problem is they don't want to address it
in a meaningful way.
It is a big challenge, but there has to be something meaningful
to find a way to stop this trend.
Lazenby: The real problem is they don't want to address it
in a meaningful way.
It is a big challenge, but there has to be something meaningful
to find a way to stop this trend.
Telander: Where does the responsibility lie?
And really, you do start at the top.
So, if the Air Jordans are in the image of Michael Jordan,
shouldn't he have some say about what's going on?
And part of the criticism of Jordan is legitimate,
that he has not been a social leader.
And other people say -- and I could argue, too --
why should he be? He did enough on the court,
he did enough as a businessman,
to transcend any kind of criticism
you might want to lay on him for not having gone out there,
and marched, and had some big social program.
You know, why don't you help these kids
instead of exploiting them?
Knight: I always wondered if it's one of the things that he regrets,
that he didn't step in at a certain time,
and say, "Hey, knock it off."
I don't know what kids would have done,
but it couldn't have hurt.
You know, could he have done more?
Yeah, he could have done more.
You know, but Nike, as a company,
should have done more, too, possibly, if they really cared.
Nike has a history of standing by their athletes, right?
And when they get into trouble,
unless they're really in trouble,
like Lance Armstrong,
they stand with them very late in the game.
Brands used to be afraid to share their values.
And now, the consumer says,
"No, I want the brand to tell me what their values are."
And I think this is a piece of that corporate ethos now.
Nike will certainly more than not
be looked at on the right side of history --
as long as people aren't naive
as to why they're on the right side of history.
Not on the right side of history
because they felt some deep moral obligation.
They're on the right side of history
because it made them money.
They understand, especially as a company
that was kind of built on rebellion,
that they understand
that rebellion is an attractive quality.
It's attractive in the marketplace, you know?
The kids -- You needs kids to certainly buy the shoes,
but you need them to push it, and push it,
and make it a cultural staple.
And so, Nike understands that
so it makes all the sense in the world for them to appear
as if they care about social justice.
Bengtson: Obviously, the responsibility spreads out.
You know, obviously, there's some degree of responsibility
on virtually everyone, from the company down to the criminal.
You know, when I look back at the way
that first Air Jordan release happened,
and when they released it in 1985,
the initial supply sold out immediately.
You know, stuff was just gone.
And people were getting robbed for their Air Jordans
back then, in 1985.
Or people were getting offered an absurd amount of money
for them in the street, immediately after buying them,
'cause they just couldn't get them.
So, you know, Nike's response to this
was kind of what people want them to do now.
They made more. They made a lot more.
And that second wave of Air Jordans came out,
you know, which I'm sure did help to a degree.
And a lot of people did buy them
who couldn't have gotten them the first time.
But unfortunately, a lot of them sat, too, you know?
And there were original Air Jordans
available two years later,
three years later, for virtually nothing.
Nike, first and foremost, and Jordan first and foremost,
I mean, they're billion-dollar businesses.
You know, they didn't get that way by doing things
like over-production.
You know, and I think they've kind of honed their tactics
to the point where, you know,
they know that, yes, they're never gonna make enough
for everybody who wants them to get them.
But I think they also understand,
if they make so many that they don't sell through,
and they wind up going on sale, it ends up hurting their brand.
Williams: Nike has been very, very passive,
and kind of, for the most part, stood back on this.
But Nike also, you know, has a little blood
on their hands, too, when it comes to this.
Because they kind of created this sense of urgency --
this is sense of demand.
And I think that type of mindset has kind of carried on
through the entire legacy of the brand.
I don't think it was intentional by Nike, at all.
However, they kind of created,
from the start, of, "This is something rare.
This is something you have to get your hands on."
Telander: The desire to have what somebody else has
because you don't have it is still there.
And, yes, there are still crimes for these shoes,
for these products.
The things that you walk in,
the things that you need just to get through a day,
those things have taken on a significance
that they never had,
and it's all because of Air Jordans.
♪♪
Letterman: Alright, now, Michael, is this shoe.
Now, of course, we can't show what kind of shoe this is.
That's okay. The color will stand for it.
But is this the shoe that the NBA wouldn't let you wear?
Yeah.
Now, why wouldn't they let you wear it? Just because it's ugly?
[ Laughter ]
It's just a joke.
It's just a joke, you know what I mean?
And here, we have the new improved Air Jordan.
With some white in it.
Yeah, with some white in it.
Now, you get a little something
for each of these sold, don't you?
Yeah. You working at it.
What a deal. What a deal.
♪♪