The Best One Yet
The Best Idea Yet 🏀 Air Jordans: How MJ's Mom Made the Deal of the Century
30 Dec 2024
Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/Episodes drop every Tuesday, free to listen to wherever you get your pods.It’s simply the most popular sneaker in history. With $7B in annual sales today, Nike and Michael Jordan’s shoe deal changed sports, fashion and marketing forever - But it never would’ve happened without skilled negotiating by MJ’s Mom. Originally banned by the NBA, Air Jordans have sold hundreds of millions of pairs, made Michael Jordan worth almost $2 billion (that’s why he always has a cigar), and saved the entire Nike company. Find out how Nike rewrote the rules on celebrity endorsements, why salaries are stable but equity is exciting… and why Air Jordans is the best idea yet.Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet for the untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with, and the bold risk takers who brought them to life. https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/—-----------------------------------------------------GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Full Episode
Yet is Nick and Jack here with you. Today, we're serving up an episode of The Best Idea Yet. Our weekly deep dive series where we cover the incredible stories behind the most viral products of all time. Right now, we're still on vacation, but our feed is not. So here's what we got for you. Sit back and enjoy the wild story of Air Jordan.
It's Nike's biggest bet they ever took that paid off more than anyone could have imagined. Then after this episode, because we think you'll love this episode, go subscribe to The Best Idea Yet wherever you get your podcasts. You can search for it in whatever podcast app you're using right now. We also put a link in the episode description to make it easy for you.
So Jack, let's hit Nike Air Jordans, the best idea yet. As a child, I actually whipped up a will for myself. Legally binding? Well, Tuck's getting my M&Ms. Dude, this is 11-year-old me. Yeah, this is impressive. I'm not sure I got a notary. So I had like seven assets, a few baseball cards, a blankie. Classics. But my most cherished asset was my Mariano Rivera baseball glove.
Oh, well, that's an institution, Jack. I mean, you could retire on that. It was the mitt Mariano wore on the mound for all those World Series in the 90s. And I know why you bought that mitt, Jack. And it wasn't for the smell, and it wasn't for the fit, was it? It's because it was Mariano's glove. Yeah.
And I saw him on TV using the same mitt that I had, and that just made me feel like a million bucks. Jack, that is exactly why I bought Marc Messier's ice hockey helmet when I was six. It's why I drank Coca-Cola after a Wayne Gretzky ad, and I'm pretty sure that's why I enjoyed Ritz crackers when I saw some New York giant in a commercial.
Nick, my Mariano glove and your Mark Messier helmet, those were 90s products, but neither would have existed without the shoe that broke the mold from a decade earlier, the original 1985 Air Jordans. The phenomenon that is Air Jordan transformed the sports apparel industry in so many ways that we take for granted today. I mean, marketing, celebrity endorsements, team branded merchandise.
It has all been affected by the groundbreaking deal at the heart of today's story. Yo, Mike, what makes you the best player in the universe? Money's gotta be the shoes. Since their initial release, there have been 39 editions of Air Jordan sneakers, plus re-releases of retro classics from the line.
In fact, get this, an incredible 25% of sneaker owners in the United States own a pair of Air Jordans. The Jordan brand revenue for 2023 was $7 billion, and it was the strongest performer in all of Nike's brand portfolio. I mean, not too shabby for a Sprinkle on a little more context for us, please. That makes Air Jordan bigger than Ralph Lauren, Hyatt Hotels, or Mattel.
And get this, Air Jordan sales are, and I hate to say this because I wore them just the other day to our podcast studio, 28 times bigger than all birds. The Air Jordan name was created to win Nike a place in the hearts, the minds, and the shoe racks of basketball fans. Success would be an understatement. In the 2022-2023 basketball season, 65% of NBA players wore Nike.
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