Michael Jordan has earned over $1 billion from his shoe line. According to Forbes, the Jordan Brand is worth well over $10 billion today. Last year alone, it generated a revenue of $6.59 billion, which was 13% of Nike’s total for the fiscal year 2023.
But as incredibly successful as the Jordan Brand is today, Mike’s billion-dollar empire would not have existed without his mother, Deloris.
MJ himself admits that it was his mother who forced him to attend his first-ever meeting with Nike. Mike was hell-bent on signing with Adidas, and he did not want to entertain the thought of even listening to their counterpart’s pitch.
Even Jordan’s agent, the powerful David Falk, could not convince his new client to board a plane to Beaverton. So Falk did the smart thing. He reached out to Mike’s parents, and Deloris promised him that her son would be with him on the plane to Oregon.
“My mother said, ‘You’re gonna go listen. You may not like it, but you’re gonna go listen,’” MJ said in the Last Dance, via NBC Sports. “She made me get on that plane and go listen.”
Mike flew to Oregon but didn’t sign the deal right away
Falk recalls that when they got to the meeting, Nike was as ready as they could be. They prepared a video of MJ’s North Carolina and Olympic highlights, which was played on VCR. During the pitch, Nike didn’t just present MJ with a signature shoe but an entire clothing line that would be named after him.
When it came to the most important part, Nike offered the then-Bulls rookie a five-year $2.5 million endorsement deal, which included a signature shoe. The amount was at least triple the next largest shoe deal at that time. It was also slightly bigger than the first-year base salary of $455,000 from his rookie deal with the Chicago Bulls.
But even after receiving such a massive offer, Jordan didn’t sign the deal right there and then. Although he admitted to being impressed with Nike’s pitch, he still insisted on going to Adidas to present himself.
Jordan gave Adidas a chance to come close to Nike’s offer
In an interview years later, Jordan admitted that he never wore Nike shoes until he signed a contract with them. MJ wore Converse throughout his college career, and the brand was the official shoe of the NBA at that time. Jordan also met with Converse, but they told him that he couldn’t go in front of the line and ahead of Magic, Bird, and Dr. J. And then he went to Adidas.
“I went back to Adidas and said look; this is the Nike contract; if you come anywhere close, I’ll sign with you guys. Anywhere close to what they were putting on the table. But at that time, Adidas was a European brand that didn’t make a strong push for the United States, and they didn’t feel that it was worth it, which in hindsight, was perfect for me because it made my decision much easier, and I ended up with Nike. From that point on, the relationship just started to blossom,” Jordan narrated.
The word ‘blossom’ didn’t do justice to what happened next. Falk said Nike projected to generate a revenue of $3 million from Air Jordan shoes at the end of Year 3. But after year one, the Jordan shoe delivered $126 million. It became so big that in 1997, Nike decided to establish a sub-brand called Jordan. And Mike is rich beyond imagination today because his mom forced him to take a flight to Beaverton in 1984.
