Nike Air Jordan I

What could we say about the Nike Air Jordan? Surely we are talking about the most famous shoes of the history and about the greatest athlete of all-time. Nike and basketball sneakers are so popular now in a big part because of Michael Jordan and his shoes.

Lets talk something about the history of the Nike Air Jordan I. Back in 1984 Michael Jordan was drafted by the Chicago Bulls and he was ready to start his professional career. He wanted to sign a deal with Adidas because it was his favourite brand since his childhood but the german brand had a different opinion about his value and they didnt offer him a sponsorship so he ended up signing with Nike on October 10th, 1984.

As a part of his deal with Nike Michael Jordan was going to wear his own signature shoe, the Nike Air Jordan. However his signature model was not ready for the start of the 1984-85 so he wore a rare model called Nike Air Ship since the preseason. Those shoes in a black/red colourway were banned by the league because there was a rule according to that “A player must wear shoes that not only matched their uniforms, but matched the shoes worn by their teammates."

Michael Jordan was going to be fined by the league with $5000 per every game he played with the black/red sneakers but people at Nike were smart enough to see that as a big opportunity so they decided to pay the bill while convinced Jordan to wear them anyway.

Of course with all the hype around the banned shoes Nike launched a sucessful promotional campaign around the country. However instead of the Nike Air Ship that was the real banned model Nike utilized for the campaign the new Nike Air Jordan I in black/red colourway that erroneusly would past to the history and popular culture as the shoes banned by the NBA. This is one of the Nike ads from 1985.

On November 17th,1984 Michael Jordan debuted his signature shoes but in a white/red colourway matching the Chicago Bulls colours. Later that season he debuted the shoes in a white/black-red colourway popularly known as "Bred Toe" .It seems that he never played a single NBA game with the Air Jordans I in the banned colorway but after all...who cares? 

The Nike Air Jordan I were oficially released in April 1st, 1985. Since then Nike had released the shoes in different colorways or heights. It was the first Nike model to be retroed in 1994. You can take a look to a very complete list here.