‘Air’: The true story of Michael Jordan’s first contract with Nike that inspired the Ben Affleck movie

The last time Ben Affleck directed a story based on true events, 10 years ago, the Best Picture Oscar ended up in his hands. This week, the actor, producer, screenwriter and director premieres ‘AIR’, a story about the first steps of Nike as the great sportswear multinational that we know today and the agreement that allowed its unthinkable growth: A shoe contract with a basketball player who at that time had not played a single professional game in the NBA. A… Michael Jordan.

Nike, the house that Michael Jordan built

Affleck gets into the shoes of Nike co-founder Phil Knight, but the true protagonist of all this is Sonny Vaccaro, the character played by his inseparable friend and ex-roommate (and bank account partner) Matt Damon. Vaccaro was a very well connected man in the world of basketball. By organizing high school tournaments, the commercial had built a good relationship with many coaches across the country, including Dean Smith, who coached Jordan at the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. When Vaccaro watched Jordan play, his idea for a sneaker line (previously rejected by Nike) resurfaced as the best strategy to break into a market monopolized by Converse and Adidas..

Young Michael (Damian Young) dreamed of Converse, but the company staffed legends like Julius Erving, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, and saw Jordan as a rookie newcomer (which, to be honest, is that it was) to which they could not offer the same treatment as their stars. The next preferred option for Jordan was Adidas, but the brand was only interested in tall players, over 7 feet (2.13m).. Vaccaro’s insistence and his alliance with Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), Nike’s marketing director, managed to tip the balance in his favor.

Nike was at a low point and needed a knock-on, and they gambled it all on a 21-year-old who hadn’t made his NBA debut yet. According to legend, it was the player’s own agent, David Falk (Chris Messina), who proposed the motto of ‘Air Jordan’ and inspired the design created by Peter Moore (Matthew Maher). Vaccaro met Jordan through his friend George Raveling (Marlon Wayans), assistant coach of the national team, Bobby Knight, and they proposed to him.

The most lucrative sports contract in history

The offer was $2.5 million over five years plus 25% of each shoe sold under the ‘Air Jordan’ name. All crazy for the time, and more for a novice. Nike brought Jordan and her parents to Oregon to witness a presentation put on by Strasser and Moore. In front of his parents, Jordan didn’t say much. Jordan’s mother, Deloris (Viola Davis), guided much of the conversation and was key in the final decision. of the first year player. Jordan tried to get Adidas and Converse to match the deal, but to no avail. In the end, he chose Nike more out of discard than out of conviction. But the play will go down as one of the most lucrative in the history of the sport.

And that at the beginning there was another little problem. When Michael Jordan debuted his red and black sneakers for the Chicago Bulls, he was fined $5,000 by the league for violating the dress color code, which said that shoes had to have white as the priority color. But Nike saw this as a “cheap” marketing possibility and bore the cost of sanctions, advertising the shoes as “banned by the NBA”.

The sports brand had forecast about 3 million dollars in sales that year 1984, but the results broke any expectations. The Air Jordan 1 achieved a staggering $125 million in sales in its first yearchanging the rules of the game forever.

Michael Jordan’s legacy

Today, Jordan Brand and its famous ‘Jumpman’ logo, the silhouette of Michael doing a dunk with his legs wide apart, adorn the visiting kits of NBA teams and even sponsor teams from other sports, such as PSG soccer, Leo Messi’s team. Can you imagine the Argentine wearing a shirt with the silhouette of Maradona, for example? That is the legacy of Air Jordan.

Michael Jordanwho during his career as the greatest player in NBA history earned a total of about 90 million dollars in salaries, He has an estimated fortune of more than 2,000 million thanks to his commercial agreements and his investments and, at the age of 60, he adds more than 60 million dollars every year to that figure thanks to his contract with Nike.

The story of how the historic agreement that changed the history of sports forever was created, ‘AIR’, premieres today April 5 in theaters throughout Spain.