Michael Jordan was really close and had all the intention to sign with Adidas when he was a rookie. MJ is famous for his Air Jordans, created by Nike, but all of that wouldn’t exist right now if Jordan continued with his plans to sign with the German company.
Initially, he wanted to join Converse, the then official shoe partner for the NBA, which counted with the likes of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Isiah Thomas. Converse wasn’t a real option, though, as they didn’t think MJ would surpass Magic or Larry.
With that option discarded, His Airness was all in with Adidas, and everything pointed out he was going to sign with the three stripes. However, the German company wasn’t able to fabricate a basketball shoe at that time, which opened the door for Nike. Nevertheless, Jordan wasn’t interested in the American multinational, favoring Adidas over everybody else.
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David Falk, his former agent, revealed he had all the intention to persuade Mike to sign with Nike, and he made drastic decisions trying to convince his young client to at least listen to the people behind the wing.
“I wanted Michael to go with Nike because they were the upstart,” Falk says in ‘The Last Dance’ documentary. “I couldn’t even get him to get on the damn plane to visit the campus, so I called his parents.”
MJ listened to his mom and attended a meeting with Nike.
“My mother said, ‘you’re going to go listen. You may not like it, but you’re going to go listen,'” Jordan recalls. She made me get on that plane and go listen.”
In the end, everything went well for Jordan. He signed a $250K contract with Nike, they manufactured a signature shoe and the rest is history. Right now talking about Jordan is talking about Nike. That’s how relevant and how close MJ has been with the American company.
We don’t know if Adidas would eventually make a shoe for Jordan, but it’s hard to imagine it would’ve had the same impact as his Air Jordans.
