Nike's 30-Year-Old Lie

Michael Jordan basically fell into Nike’s lap in 1984. 

They weren’t his first choice for an endorsement deal — that was Adidas. But just like the Trail Blazers did when they drafted Sam Bowie ahead of Jordan, Adidas made the mistake of sticking with the conventional wisdom of signing Big Men.

MJ left Adidas empty handed and headed over to Converse. Jordan was used to playing in Converse sneakers during his time at UNC, where coach Dean Smith had struck a deal with the brand worth $10K per year.

Though skeptical at first, Jordan was surprised by the Converse pitch, which hammered home their pedigree and emphasized their currently-signed stars like Magic and Bird. 

They even offered him $100K, which was on par with a deal for a proven star.

But negotiations stalled, and it became clear Converse was losing a step to Adidas and Nike.

It would take convincing from his mother for MJ to even take a meeting with Nike, a moment recalled by Jordan in the ‘The Last Dance’: 

“You're going to go listen. You may not like it, but you're gonna go listen." 

After the meeting, Jordan’s father weighed in as well: “You have to be a fool not to take this deal. It's a great deal.”

A year after Apple ran its legendary “1984” ad during the Super Bowl, Nike mounted a historic marketing campaign of its own. Kicking off the most successful endorsement deal in the history of sports, Nike’s Air Jordan 1 commercials harped on a narrative from his rookie year.

The first commercial dramatically pans down from Jordan’s face to his sneakers.

While the sound of a bouncing basketball echoes in the background, a voiceover is played:

 “On September 15, Nike created a revolutionary new basketball shoe. October 18, the NBA threw them out of the league.”

In effect, Nike was building a brand around their superstar that separated him from the NBA as an individual, and subtly asking fans to pick a side. The issue with Nike’s “rebellion” advertising is that it was revisionist history.

Early Air Jordan 1 commercials painted a picture of the NBA cracking down on MJ for wearing black and red Air Jordan 1s. A fine was said to be issued, with Nike picking up the tab on Jordan’s behalf — portraying the sneakers as an act of defiance against the establishment.

But there was a problem with that story about the October 18 game. While the game did take place — it was a preseason matchup against the Knicks — and Jordan did play… he was definitely not wearing the Air Jordan 1s.

MJ was wearing something called the Nike Air Ships.

It wouldn’t be crazy to mistake the Air Ships with an earlier Nike release, the Air Force 1’s

Both were designed by Bruce Kilgore and are dotted with commonalities ranging from a high-top design all the way down to the raised lettering on its sole.

Kilgore’s AF-1s were released in 1982, blazing a technological path that would shape sneaker design to this very day. It was Kilgore’s first attempt at a basketball sneaker, and it took the full might of Nike’s DCEC committee — which consisted of a wide array of scientists including an aerospace engineer named Frank Rudy.

Rudy had previously been responsible for pitching Nike on the idea of a pocket of air to cushion their sneaker designs. First introduced with the Nike Air Tailwind in 1979, that same system would be implemented in Kilgore’s AF-1s, making them the first basketball shoe with Nike’s “Air Technology.”

The same innovations were carried over into Kilgore’s next design, the Nike Air Ships. What was in retrospect a stop-gap between the AF-1’s and Air Jordan 1’s, the Air Ships could have been reduced to a mere piece of trivia for sneakerheads. But as it so happened, the Air Ships would go down in history as the sneakers worn by Michael Jordan in his first-ever NBA games.

Though for years, Nike kept them a secret.

Because details like that ruin great storytelling, Nike tried to erase the Air Ships from memory. Despite Jordan only wearing the Air Jordan 1s in an NBA game for the first time in late November of his rookie year, they became known as his first NBA shoe.

The myth carried Nike to the March retail launch of the Air Jordan 1s, marking the first in a line of sneakers that rivaled Jordan’s on-court greatness in popularity and has dominated in terms of longevity.

Nike stuck to their story for decades — never releasing a retro or mentioning the Air Ships at all. 

They rewrote history. 

Finally, the Jordan Brand Twitter account posted a photo of MJ wearing Air Ships on the 30th anniversary of his NBA debut.

Then, in 2020, Nike brought the Air Ships out of the box for a long-awaited return ahead of The Last Dance” docuseries. 

Not long after, the earliest known regular season pair of Jordan’s game-worn sneakers came up for auction at Sotheby’s. The red and white Air Ships were signed by Jordan and matched to his fifth NBA game in 1984. After decades in the dark, the Air Ships became the first pair of sneakers to ever sell at auction for over $1M. They shattered the record, with bidding ending at nearly $1.5M.