Michael Jordan’s run in the 1990s solidified him as one of the greatest players the game of basketball has ever seen. His success also led to the formation and rise of the Air Jordan brand, which cemented him as an icon in pop culture as well. Today, it has one of the most recognizable logos of any sports brand. But as popular as the logo may be, it carries its share of controversies, foremost being whether or not Jordan actually struck that pose midgame while attempting a dunk.
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Jeff Teague and his crew on the Club 520 podcast were the latest to sit and discuss this in earnest. Where did the ‘Jumpman’ pose originate from? Teague, being the only one with NBA experience in the group, explained that the photo was most likely taken in a photoshoot setting, and that there are thousands of photos of the Chicago Bulls legend with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth.
Teague’s claim went against popular belief, which to this day holds that Jordan struck that incredible pose during an actual NBA game. If anyone could have done it, it was Jordan. But according to Teague, a champion with the Milwaukee Bucks, even he didn’t.
“Clearly y’all ain’t ever been in no photoshoot,” he said, as the crew around him burst into laughter. “Where you think Michael Jordan got his logo from? Where y’all think Mike got his logo from? Y’all think Mike did that in the game? There’s literally a thousand pictures of Mike’s tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.”
The logo remains one of the most famous sporting silhouettes of all time. The fact that Jordan Brand generated close to $7 billion in revenue last year only proves that it will remain timeless.
Teague may have vehemently protested that the photo in question was taken in a controlled environment. However, Jordan’s history of high-flying dunks, along with the fact that he pulled off a very similar pose in his dunk contest-winning slam in 1988, suggest that he could just as well have hit the same pose in a game at some point.
That said, MJ himself debunked that myth a while back. Teague was right after all. The logo was taken from a photoshoot that he did in 1985 for Nike. In it, he simply jumped up from a standing position and spread his legs into what eventually became the iconic silhouette.
“I wasn’t even dunking on that one. People think that I was. I just stood on the floor, jumped up, and spread my legs, and they took the picture. I wasn’t even running,” he told Hoop Magazine in 1997. “Everyone thought I did that by running and taking off. Actually, it was a ballet move where I jumped up and spread my legs. And I was holding the ball in my left hand.”
The mystery of the origins of the logo may have been debunked a long time ago, but the controversy surrounding it lasted till 2018, when a lawsuit was settled by a US appeals court. A photographer by the name of Jacob Rentmeester had shot Jordan in that same pose in 1984, for a special issue of LIFE Magazine.
In 2015, he filed a suit against Nike, claiming that the company had copied the photograph, something he had only given them temporary permission to use. The courts in Oregon ruled against Rentmeester originally, and he decided to take it further to the appeals courts, who also backed up the ruling of the local courts. The controversy, in all honestly, made the Jordan logo even more iconic.
