Michael Jordan undoubtedly changed the way people saw sneakers. From wearing banned sneakers during NBA games to taunting people not wearing his brand, Jordan’s journey of building his own brand is heavily credited to the way he used his sneakers. Charles Barkley recently appeared on the Dan Patrick show and spoke about several aspects of his experiences with Michael Jordan, Nike, and the Air Jordan sneakers.
Barkley initially spoke about how Jordan revolutionized the way a common man saw sneakers.
“When he started doing commercials, that changed everything for everybody. Now, because of Michael, I was making millions of dollars from wearing Nike; nobody was doing that, nobody had a signature shoe where they were making a hundred million dollars a year, that’s all because of Michael. That’s why regardless of all this other stuff, this LeBron stuff, this Kobe stuff, people buy shoes because of Michael freaking Jordan, that’s it. I mean, and that’s no disrespect to anybody, yeah, some of these other guys out here selling shoes— Michael Jordan made people wear shoes to weddings, nobody ever thought about wearing shoes to weddings until Michael Jordan, think about that.”
Barkley then went on to speak about how a tip from Jordan to convert his Nike earnings into stock options further helped him earn millions of dollars. He then narrated a story about the time he wore Jordan’s sneakers during an NBA game as a tribute to MJ, who had just announced in private that he was retiring at the end of the season.
“I called Michael and I said, ‘Hey, send me a pair of shoes. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate everything you did for me, give me that advice on that Nike stock that made me $30 million.”
“Man, I put his shoes on one game. He definitely the greatest damn basketball player ever Dan, those were the heaviest damn things ever played in in my life. I’m not even joking because when I designed my shoes, I wanted them really, really light. I played in those heavy a** Air Jordans one game, it was like I had bricks on my damn feet Dan and I’m being 100% serious.”
“I called him man I actually called him after the game I said “Yo man what the hell you be putting in these damn shoes?” I mean they were so damn heavy Dan I said “Hey I played in them one game as a tribute to him, these shoes too damn heavy for me man” that’s a true story Dan. Yeah I said “You really are a damn goat you playing in these big a** bricks.”
Originally, Barkley wore Nike Air Max sneakers in his playing days, which were famous for being lightweight. However, this experience made Barkley realize the extent of how great what Jordan does is.
In his opinion, while LeBron James and Kobe Bryant may have had basketball careers close to his, in terms of selling the sneakers he makes, he is undisputed as the GOAT. Jordan generated $7 billion in Nike’s revenues last year (2024). But personally, Barkley is not a big fan of the original design of the Air Jordans.
