Did you know that Michael Jordan earns $400 million a year in passive income because of the percentage he gets from sales Air Jordans? Understanding how this happened, we must go back to the 1980s and famous sneaker label Nike, in Ben Affleckthe latest movie Air. Written by Alex Convery, the film stars Affleck, Matt Damon, Viola DavisChris Messina, Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman, and Julius Tennon.
Sonny Vaccaro (Damon) is a gambler—which shows he likes to take risks. He works for Nike CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) in the company’s Basketball Division expert. He scouts up-and-coming b-ball players and offers them shoe endorsement deals, and currently has his sights set on an 18-year-old Michael Jordan. Sonny thinks Jordan is worth the full price they’re offering ($250,000), and so does Vaccaro’s advisor Howard White (Tucker), but Knight, and VP of marketing Robert Strasser (Bateman), think it’s is a responsibility to do so. He tries to meet with Jordan by talking to his agent David Falk (Messina), but the athlete is more interested in signing with Adidas.
With no plans to give up, Vaccaro steps up the chain of command and flies to North Carolina to talk to Jordan’s parents, Delores (Davis), and James (Tennon). During two shoe endorsement meetings with Adidas, and Converse, Sonny asked his mother to reconsider talking to Nike, and warned her what to expect when dealing with these companies. With the Nike CEO, Falk, and Strasser breathing down his neck to close the deal or lose his job, Vaccaro deployed clever maneuvering to secure the client, and stay employed.
In his fifth feature film, Affleck’s talents exceed expectations. He has grown as an actor and director but is best when doing both. Not sure how he does it. The organization and patience required to balance all those elements must be daunting, but I can’t tell because he’s not breaking a sweat. In Air, Affleck makes good use of aerial shots that show how large some of these company campuses are. The main part of his visual style are desaturated scenes that use a mixture of green and blue that fits the tone of his earlier work, but he changes it here by increasing the brightness and color that makes it look hopeful. of the viewing experience.
Air has the best cast featuring some of Hollywood’s finest. Each of them gives an award-worthy performance, it’s hard to pick a favorite, and it’s rarely good acting throughout. I saw two performances of Affleck in SXSWand you can just tell when he’s passionate about a project, and when he’s calling it quits. Convery’s script has all the elements to muster the energy needed to pull it off.
Delores Jordan is responsible for her son’s career now. Despite Nike’s objections, he was able to negotiate a deal where Michael would get a worldwide percentage from every Air Jordan shoe sold. Her stance is that she knows her son’s worth, and that “A shoe is just a shoe…until my son walks into it.” The goal was to create footwear that reflected his personality and give fans something that would make them feel closer to the Chicago Bulls player.
Visible Air, and how the world’s most famous sneaker came to exist makes me think about the evolution of shoes almost 40 years later. People steal, kill, and die for a pair. It’s crazy to think of this trajectory that starts innocently enough and turns customers into avid consumers. Of course that’s not Jordan’s problem, but this story puts things into perspective. So many white men have control over his career, I’m glad to see some kind of on screen advocacy for athletes like Mike and others like him because this deal with Nike has changed the sneaker, and basketball industry in a huge way .