The Nike Gamble That Built Air Jordan
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, the 1984 NBA Draft brought Michael Jordan to Chicago and led Nike into a gamble that would define its future. Nike committed to a signature shoe built around a rookie and released a design that drew immediate scrutiny from league officials. But the fines that followed became part of the story rather than the end of it.
As Jordan’s career began to climb, so did the visibility of the Air Jordan line. Nicholas Smith, the author of Kicks, revisits the early days of the Nike and Michael Jordan partnership and the circumstances that led to one of the most recognizable brands in sports.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, |
| 0:18.2 | the show where America is the star and the American people. |
| 0:21.6 | If you were to think of the most popular sneakers in sports, the name that comes to mind is Nike. |
| 0:27.6 | But this brand wasn't always a top choice for athletes. In fact, in the 1970s and 80s, |
| 0:32.6 | Nike was an underdog compared to other big brands like Adidas and Pluma. |
| 0:38.1 | Up next, Nicholas Smith, author of Kix, the great American story of sneakers, |
| 0:43.5 | brings us the story of how Nike took a chance on a college student to build their brand. |
| 0:50.0 | Take it away, Nick. |
| 0:54.0 | What makes Cinderella special at the ball? |
| 0:57.0 | It's that glass slipper. |
| 0:58.4 | What makes Dorothy return back from Oz to Kansas? |
| 1:02.1 | And tap your heels together three times. |
| 1:06.7 | And think to yourself, there's no place like home. |
| 1:12.6 | It's the red ruby slippers. |
| 1:14.5 | What makes Michael Jordan fly through the air? |
| 1:17.1 | It's that Nike Air Jordan. |
| 1:19.4 | So they were selling an idea that had been with our culture for a very long time. |
| 1:25.6 | That shoes can transform you into something else. |
| 1:31.4 | Now, Nike at the time had some success in the running shoe market and was trying to move into other sports. |
| 1:37.6 | Of course, they were competing with the conversees and with the Adidas and with the Pumas in the world |
... |
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