🏀💡This Is a Story About Jordan And Nike Before They Became Famous...

🏀FOLLOW JORDAN👟

In the summer of 1991, Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to win his first NBA championship trophy. At the time, Ban Affleck was only 19 years old. Now, over 30 years later at the age of 50, he has directed and starred in the movie Air which tells the story of Jordan joining the NBA, Nike overcoming various difficulties to sign him, and the story of his personal exclusive shoe line, Air Jordan.

In the 1980s, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were the dominant players.

The names Nike, Air Jordan, and NBA naturally bring up another great name: Michael Jordan.

Nike, Air Jordan, and NBA, when these three terms are put together, they naturally evoke another great name: Michael Jordan. The lead poster for "Air" features a pair of Air Jordan 1 shoes. For those who have experienced and loved the Chicago Bulls dynasty and are over 30 years old today, how could they not know what kind of movie "Air" is? Let's not discuss what the movie is about yet, and just imagine what "Air" would be like. It feels simple - "Air" must feature a young Michael Jordan fresh out of college and how he slowly established himself in the NBA, while wearing the red and black Nike shoes made for him, flying around the court.

But the fact is that this movie is not about Jordan as the main character, but his name is mentioned frequently. He appears in the movie in a blurry image, such as in a low-quality video or a half-body newspaper clipping. Although the movie centers around Jordan, he is like the center of a whirlpool, always present but never clearly visible. This is an intentional arrangement by the creators of "Air."

The story of "Air" takes place during a time when nobody paid attention to Jordan and Nike. Jordan dropped out of college and joined the NBA, and many people were still skeptical of his last-minute shot in the college league. Although he led the North Carolina Tar Heels to win the NCAA championship, he was not a top pick in the NBA draft, and many people did not pay much attention to this extraordinary dunking master.

Nike was also struggling at the time. Although they had good sales in the running shoe market, their basketball department was performing poorly, and even the basketball stars were not willing to work with them. Nike could only fight for the scraps left by Adidas and Converse, using the remaining budget to sign several lower-ranked players.

Jordan's game-winning shot in the NCAA championship game is not about the familiar NBA powerhouse and basketball shoe king. As mentioned above, the protagonist of the movie "Air" is not even Jordan himself, and it does not focus on his psychological struggles before becoming an NBA player. The main character of this basketball movie is not the game itself, but rather Nike, from co-founder Phil Knight (played by Eddie Frierson) to marketing executives Rob Strasser and Howard White, and even marketing manager Sonny Vaccaro. From a commercial perspective, a sports marketing person may not focus on praising physical fitness and skills in a sports movie, but "Air" takes a different approach. It tells the story of a group of "kingmakers" and how they broke the rules to overturn the sports world, not just how Nike signed Jordan. Disrupting the norm is the true focus of "Air".

Jordan rose to fame in an era of magic and bird duels, using his excellent physical fitness, confidence, and hard-earned skills to show the world that the will of a basketball god is even more magical than they think. Sonny is the same way. His goal is not to be a "good manager," but to do the manager's job "well," which is to find players worth investing in for the company, and then help them achieve fame and fortune so that the company's shoe business can achieve substantial growth.

Therefore, he is not willing to blindly follow the company's principles, he ignores the company's cost-cutting rules, and even skips the player's agent to try to directly communicate and negotiate contracts with the players. This series of actions is all about disrupting norms. Chubby Mat Damon plays an unhappy middle-aged man who is unwilling to compromise, but in his actions, he reveals his passion just like the basketball players who compete on the court.

No one wants to watch a sports marketing movie, but you must witness Ben Affleck's "evolution" in this movie. "Air" is not like Ben's past movies. There are no gunfights and thieves' schemes here, only the back-and-forth of the business world, and you cannot use a few intense gunfights to make up for it. "Air" relies on a solid script. The dialogue between these marketers is written in a concise and clever way, quickly leading the audience into the sports marketing world of the 80s. On the one hand, it introduces how Adidas became a trend idol at the time, wearing it meant being a perfect machine, and Converse was also synonymous with basketball shoes, and the same style could make all the basketball players form a consensus. The Nike people in the dialogue reveal despair, anxiety, and opposite survival instincts. They know they are far behind, but they only need one chance to invest all their enthusiasm.

Underdog stories are a common theme in sports movies, but Ben Affleck slightly shifts the focus in "Air" to highlight the idea of overcoming odds off the court. This theme may seem simple, but since the audience may not be familiar with Nike during this time period, and may not know who Sonny Vaccaro is, "Air" must create these characters from scratch.

The casting of the Nike team is exceptional, with Chris Stuckmann, known for his absurd humor, playing a wise and friendly advisor, and Jason Bateman playing a worried executive who understands that the department is on the brink of being cut. One of his monologues expresses not only Nike's crisis, but also the helplessness and despair that people face in middle age.

In short, it doesn't matter if the audience knows who Sonny is, "Air" introduces the struggling Nike basketball department to the audience, allowing them to empathize with their difficulties and cheer them on. This is the magic of the movie, and one of the reasons why Ben Affleck deserves an Oscar for Best Director.

While the movie includes a lot of 80s classics, which is a common nostalgia tactic in movies, "Air" doesn't rely on these songs to awaken the audience's nostalgia. It understands that the NBA during that time period was already a legendary history, and Sonny's struggle takes the audience on a journey into the 80s NBA. You'll learn about the impact of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, as well as players like John Stockton, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing, just to name a few. If you've experienced that era, hearing these names might make you emotional.

In the opening scene of "Air", the faint sound of singing can be heard in the background, singing "I want my MTV", which reveals the subversive nature of "Air": as MTV rises, teenagers gradually become the main force of consumer groups. Sneakers themselves are just sports tools, but gradually transformed into a fashion statement. Nike did not just create a pair of Air Jordans, but also created the "Jordan spirit" that Jordan himself could not express to outsiders. The red and black color scheme of Air Jordans seriously violates the "whitening" principle of contemporary NBA sneakers (white must occupy 51% of the area), but this violation has become Nike's selling point, asking customers if they dare to be as rebellious as Jordan.

"Air" captures the subversion of Air Jordans. In the 1980s, a group of subversive marketers saw young players who were sure to bring about subversion. They subverted the concept of "accepting being behind and accepting being a follower" and subverted the outdated concept of "this is the norm", and then created a pair of sneakers that condensed subversive ideas. Since then, they have subverted the NBA, the sports marketing industry, Nike's position in the basketball world, and even the relationship between players and sponsors.

Sponsorship of athletes is still a commercial act, but it is no longer purely commercial. The subversion of Sonny has made manufacturers and athletes become partners who jointly embody the athlete's spirit. Look at the present decades later, every successful athlete has to build their own brand, and they are no longer just like pigs selected by large sports companies in the market. This change in autonomy also comes from the changes brought by Jordan and Nike.