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Team Jordan shoes appeared back in the mid-90s. Jordan Brand was preparing to separate from Nike. MJ’s brand would remain under Nike’s umbrella, but it would become its own entity. This meant creating a fully-fledged product line. As part of this expansion, the idea of launching “team shoes” came up.
The Air Jordan 13 Obsidian looks familiar, largely because of its older brother with the same colorway, but it’s something new for the year 2021. It’s nice to see the brand (occasionally) listen to us when we demand OG color blocking for non-OG colorways. It would be nice if they did it more often, but I guess we’ll take what
The Air Jordan 1 High Prototype is another one of those concepts that make you scratch your head a little bit. Apparently, Jordan Brand wants you to buy a shoe for a premium price, cut away the top portion of it and never be able to use that part ever again. So much for sustainability. Well, the good thing is
The Air Jordan 1 High Travis Scott X Fragment is one of the most beautiful shoes out there, for hypebeasts and even the OG sneakerheads who’ve been around long enough to know the colorway’s history. It is just absolutely sad and disheartening when we see resellers having an inordinate amount of a highly coveted sneakers and then us, regular folks,
The Jordan Series .02 is a new lifestyle model that feels more like Michael Jordan himself had something to do with it. As we can all guess from the name of the shoe, it’s a number of shoes that look to call out some of the most influential people in Jordan’s career. This particular colorway honors the late Dean Smith,
The Air Jordan 1 Brushstroke is definitely an interesting new look on an absolute classic. These may be an acquired taste considering that a lot of the elements of a typical Air Jordan 1 are missing. The majority of the materials are different. The tongue isn’t nylon. And, of course, there will be those that would pass on this based
The Air Jordan 11 Low IE OG Bred 2021 is back for the first time in 25 years in very close to its true-to-original form. In the previous releases of this sneaker, there have always been some elephant print or patent leather that didn’t belong. But this time around, it’s as close to the 1996 release as we’re likely to
36 years and still going strong. The Air Jordan 36 Performance Review is here.
The Air Jordan 6 Gold Hoops is for the ladies. With just the right pink hits in all the right places, these will catch your eye. But, that’s not the only thing that will. They literally have hoops on them, which we figure is an acquired taste. The colorway, though, is so clean that it just might make up for
The Air Jordan 6 Electric Green is a shoe that was thought to sell out, but really didn’t – at least not in store. There’s so much to like about these and we’re glad we still got to cop a pair for retail. This particular version looks just like a PE for a certain school, which is cool for those
The Jumpman Pro Strong USA is back for the first time since 1998. Don’t get us wrong. Jordan Brand did not make these exactly like the original Team Jordan great, but when did they ever? What we get is something close enough to the OG that we can’t really be too mad. With a familiar look from a more expensive
The Air Jordan 4 White Oreo is not a collaboration with another brand, but the internet has its ways. This, for many, is a classic colorway, even though it isn’t an original one. It can be looked at as an alternate colorway of an earlier Retro Plus release of the same Air Jordan model. Whatever the case may be, these
The Jordan AJKO Chicago 2021 comes back for the first time in quite a long time. These have always been a weird one for sneakerheads and Jordan fans alike. Whatever we think of them, though, we can’t deny that it’s an important part of the Air Jordan line’s history. With a mostly canvas upper, one of the first “budget” models
It’s crazy to think that the Jordan Brand almost didn’t happen. Can you imagine Michel Jordan rocking Adidas? If had been up to MJ at the time, that’s what would have happened.
When the GOAT was entering the league and fielding sponsorship offers, Nike was pretty low on his list. At the time, Nike was a struggling running shoe brand on the mend, concentrated on reinventing itself as a company for sports superstars.
Jordan really wanted to sign with Adidas, but the German sneaker brand wasn’t able to put together an offer as the company was undergoing a leadership shift at the time.
Converse also tried to bring MJ on board. Mike had rocked Converse in college playing for UNC (University of North Carolina) and was already familiar with the brand and what it brought to the table. But Converse already had several NBA superstars signed and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were the faces of the brand. Converse made an offer, but apparently Michel wasn’t impressed and felt he would be just another basketball player on their already stellar roster of sponsored athletes.
Still, Michel wasn’t sure about signing with Nike. Even after Nike offered MJ $500,000 a year for five years, Jordan took the offer to Adidas and to see if the brand could get “anywhere close” to the offer. But Adidas turned him down. Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s still crazy to think Adidas passed on Mike.
Nike became Jordan’s best option by default and it ended up being a match made in heaven. Nike wanted to build an entire “brand inside the brand” around Jordan and his superhuman ability to dunk.
The Air Jordan I was released in April of 1985 and they were an instant hit. By May, Nike had sold $70 million worth of the shoes. INSANE. By the end of the year, Air Jordan had made Nike more than $100 million. Phil Knight, Nike’s co-founder, summed up the success of the Air Jordan 1’s as “the perfect combination of quality product, marketing, and athlete endorsement.”
