Nike's Jordan Revolution
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A story about how Nike, as a distant third-place shoe company, landed Michael Jordan through an unconventional strategy led by Sonny Vaccaro.
"Nike was the last player at the time - just a running shoe company. They were doing about $27 million a year in sales through their running shoes. Adidas was this global brand crushing it, they owned most of the sneaker market. Reebok was number two, and Nike was a distant third.
Sonny meets Phil Knight and says, 'Hey, I got an idea for a basketball shoe. I want to create a basketball division.' Phil says okay and gives him this little basketball department.
In the 1984 draft, they had a tiny budget. Instead of spreading it across multiple players, they put their entire budget on one guy - Michael Jordan. Jordan wasn't interested in Nike, he was going to go with Adidas. But Sonny was convinced they needed Jordan.
He relentlessly pursued Jordan, met his mom, drove out to North Carolina to meet them and build a relationship. The pitch was they'd give him his own signature shoe from day one, name it after him - the Air Jordan - make it a whole product line. They negotiated a royalty on every pair of Jordan sold, and that's how Michael Jordan became a billionaire, not through basketball but through his shoes."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.