The history of the Nike Air Jordan is a story worth telling. The movie features Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as Phil Knight and Sonny Vaccaro.
Have you ever wondered how Nike signed Michael Jordan for Nike? History would come close to seeing Adidas or Converse sign the basketball legend if it wasn’t for the persistence at Nike.
Nike wasn’t always this popular
The movie makes clear that Nike struggles a lot at the start of its’ founding. It was a young company back then and their main competitors were Converse and Adidas. All the basketball players wore either Converse or Adidas. If you were trying to get a basketball player to wear Nike, you would have a better shot at winning the lottery.
Back in the 1980s, Sonny Vaccaro, finds out the hard way how hard it was to sell sponsorship deals when your company just starts out. Vaccaro is a pioneer however and he lived, breathe, and slept basketball.
He is also the original founder of the All-Star Games for High Schools. That makes it a lot easier to scout for extraordinary talents. Even though Vaccaro is the one who came up with the idea, he never gets full credit for it.
While Nike looks for new talents to launch their basketball division, Vaccaro encounters an old video of Michael Jordan taking the shot and after analyzing that video, he realizes that Jordan was the star and that the tactics of the team revolved around him. The rest of the team just acted as a distraction to clear the zone for Jordan to take shots.
Upon seeing that, Vaccaro goes up to the heads of the basketball division and asks to sign Jordan. And put all the eggs in one basket, meaning that their entire budget of $250,000 is to be spent on 1 single player: Michael Jordan.
Nike is unable to sign Jordan
All of them refuse, they are on the verge of shutting down and would rather sign multiple players. Vaccaro however urges them to sign Jordan because he considers him a once-in-a-generation talent. Neither Phil Knight nor Rob Strasser wanted to take the risk.
Strasser even explains to Vaccaro that he sees his daughter for 4 hours a week and always brings a pair of Nike’s to the park for her. If Vaccaro fails by signing Jordan and the basketball division shuts down, he would still buy her Nikes every week but out of his own pocket.
But Vaccaro doesn’t fail. After a visit to Jordan’s parents in Wilmington, North Carolina, he convinces Deloris Jordan to consider Nike after the talks with Adidas and Converse fail.
And the talks did fail because Adidas had no direction at the time with all the leaders of the board conflicting with each other. And Converse didn’t live up to their expectations either. The parents of Jordan knew what a talent Michael was and the last thing they wanted for him was to be number 4 behind the stars of that time like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
Sonny Vaccaro’s unforgettable speech
When the Jordans agree to meet with Nike, Sonny Vaccaro gives a speech in order to convince the Jordans to sign with Nike. It was truly one of the best I have ever heard:
Forget about the shoes, forget about the money. You’re going to make enough money, it’s not going to matter. Money can buy you almost anything, it can’t buy you immortality.
That, you have to earn. I’m going to look you in the eyes and I’m gonna tell you the future. You were cut from your high school basketball team. You willed your way to the NBA. You’re gonna win championships. It’s an American story, and that’s why Americans are gonna love it. People are going to build you up, and God are they going to, because when you’re great and new, we love you.
Man, we’ll build you up into something that doesn’t even exist. You’re going to change the fucking world. But you know what? Once they’ve built you as high as they possibly can, they’re gonna tear you back down – it’s the most predictable pattern. The rest of the speech can be found on IMDB.
And the speech eventually convinces the Jordans to sign with Nike, because Jordan would be treated as their number 1. And thus the Air Jordan was born.
Delores and James Jordan have but one extra addendum they want in the contract before they sign. They want a small % of the sale of every Jordan shoe and apparel and everything that falls within the Jordan collection. Vaccaro thinks he is standing with his back against the wall until he talks with CEO of Nike, Phil Knight. Knight however is already convinced and gives in easily.
The epilogue shows that Nike made a profit of $162 million in their first year. The Jordan brand would become one of Nike’s biggest earners with billions a year.
What I liked about the movie Air
The movie Air has standard acting performances. The cast is amazing with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck finally starring in a movie together again and they rewrote the original script.
Viola Davis was cast as Delores Jordan and her real-life husband Julius Tennon was cast as James Jordan. It was the wish of Michael Jordan who is a big fan of the two.
The rest of the cast consists of high-profile actors like Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker (finally in a non-comedic role), and Chris Messina.
The story of the movie is just very well written and has little to no loopholes.
The soundtrack of the movie takes you back to the 1980s with songs like Atomic Dog by George Clinton. The Message by Grandmaster Flash and many more songs that will give you that ’80s vibe.
What I also liked was the discussion about who coined the term “Air Jordan” first. The debate will never ever be solved I think.
What I didn’t like about Air
What I didn’t like about Air was the fact that they never showed Michael Jordan in the movie. You only see an actor from behind that is supposed to be Jordan. Or you see old footage of Michael Jordan.
The actor doesn’t even have any lines, he just says nothing. According to Ben Affleck, it was simply because they couldn’t find anyone who could play such a majestic figure as Jordan. And he joked that Jordan himself was too old to play himself in the movie.
It’s a missed opportunity but on the other hand, Michael Jordan plays a role in the background. It’s mostly his parents we see act in the best interest of their son. And of course, Sonny Vaccaro, who saved Nike’s entire basketball division.
A fun fact about Mr. Vaccaro is that he helped college basketball players get money from the league using their likenesses. Meaning that Vaccaro changed the face of college basketball forever.
Air Jordan is worth watching
The movie Air is a great movie if you love basketball, love Michael Jordan, or are curious about the history of Air Jordan.
The high-standard acting work in the movie is a gem. I loved every minute of it. Not only is the acting of an incredibly high standard. You can see Matt Damon for instance that he’s loving the role of Sonny Vaccaro. And if you watch someone do something they love, you feel inspired. At least I was while watching the movie.
The movie is a gem and it gets a high rating on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes (92%).
Personally, I loved the movie Air because I am a sneakerhead. I have had quite a few Nike Air Jordans with my personal favorites being the Nike Air Jordan 4 and the Nike Air Jordan 6. I even owned the original Nike Air Jordan 1 from the 1980s but I didn’t know the value of them so I played football with them and all. So to me, the movie wasn’t just about Nike Air Jordan, it was about creating a lifestyle that I have personally enjoyed for the past few decades.
