In the 1980s, Nike was still relatively new and growing. Compared to Converse and Adidas, Nike was still growing as a sports brand. Especially in basketball, they had no hold, no control. But when Michael Jordan came along, Sonny Vaccaro saw an opportunity that would eventually change the NBA and shoe branding forever.
Signing Jordan was perhaps one of the most important decisions the brand took. Vaccaro found the golden goose that would eventually become the Jordan Brand.
But there was a time when Phil Knight almost ended MJ‘s deal. In his book Michael Jordan: The Life, Roland Lazenby Knight’s reluctance to continue with Jordan and Sonny Vaccaro’s efforts to convince the Nike founder otherwise.
Phil Knight wanted to end Nike’s deal with Michael Jordan
Lazenby, a critically acclaimed sports author, wrote of MJ and his dealing with Nike in detail. His book features some detailed interviews with Vaccaro. The man who signed Michael to what would be the greatest deal in sports history clearly had some of the most insightful stories.
One of them featured Phil Knight and his growing suspicions about Air Jordan. He felt such huge sales could not be sustained and instead wanted to focus on signing college teams.
Roland Lazenby: “Strangely, Phil Knight had begun to have second thoughts about his company’s relationship with Jordan, which set up something of a drama that would unfold over the next year as talks continued about a new contract for Air Jordan. It was as if MJ had gotten too much power too quickly and it spooked Knight, Sonny Vaccaro explained. Such huge sales were difficult to sustain, and a slight dip had given the Nike chairman reason for pause. “Phil was ready to get rid of him,” Vaccaro remembered. “Phil was ready to sign all the college teams and forget Michael. I said, ‘You can’t do that.’ ”
Fortunately, Sonny convinced Phil otherwise. He showed the owner all the numbers. They clearly suggested that college would never become as big a source of sale as Jordan’s shoe line had been. Phil eventually understood Michael’s value and signed an even bigger deal with the superstar.
Lazenby: “First of all, Rob Strasser had left the company and was now advising Jordan to push for his own product line. Knight rejected that idea and persisted in questioning the value of the company’s relationship with Jordan until Vaccaro put together some numbers that made it clear that Nike couldn’t gain anything near the Air Jordan sales in college markets. Knight had a choice: to cut Jordan loose or to ride this surging, though sometimes frightening, tide. Ultimately Knight chose to stay the course with Jordan. Eventually, a fat new Nike contract would be signed, a deal that would open the door a few years later for the emergence of the Jordan Brand and create unimaginable wealth for an athlete.”
Even MJ had his own doubts about Air Jordan
Before the immense success of the shoe, Michael Jordan wasn’t all that sold on the idea of Air Jordan. To be fair to MJ, the entire thing would have felt like a blur. One second you were a college student, and then suddenly one of the greatest basketball prospects in the country with a $2.5 million deal in the bag.
It was only fair for Jordan to be a little skeptical. In fact, MJ wasn’t even that fond of ‘Air Jordan’ as the name of the shoe line. When David Falk pitched him the idea, he laughed.
But Jordan’s perspective about the deal changed once the sales blew up. It was something he had never expected. In fact, he even considered it a fad. But the fad has continued to this day and made Jordan a billionaire.
