Basketball shoe. open october 18th, the nba threw them out of the game. fortunately the nba can t stop you from wearing them. air jordans. nike made $100 million that first year and the kicks quickly became a pop culture sensation. in 1980 spike lee used them in his film do the right. . you stop me down, what about excuse ne my brand-new white air jordans i just bought. that s all can you see? are you serious? yes, i m serious. lee even starred if commercials for the shoe and character as super fan morris blackman. this is something you can buy. this is happening. this is high flying 360 slam dunk. this is something can you not do.
Become branded. so that s something really unique to the hip-hop generation, the way that they ve made, sneakers are not the shoes you made to work. that comes later. this is about the branding of leisure and play unique to the hip-hop generation. part of asking about a shoe we know, there is a way in which like buying the inexpensive. is part of wealth culture, right? so people with a lot of money purposely go to the secondhand stores, then that becomes the. to do. but working class people are still trying to consume the upper level thing. it is the aspiration. it s the value that has been inherent in our communities for some time. that predates jordan that, predates nike and the brapds marking schemes, it predates advertising. essentially, our communities made sneakers cool. prior to that, there were all the brands were unaware that we
Let me repeat myself. this is a buy. can you not do this can, can t. can. globally, nike now sells $2.5 billion of jordans, and this made him a billionaire. now, fellow basketball star stefan mar berry is accusing him of quote robbing the hood with his $150 plus sneakers. mar berry is relaunching his shoes claimed the expensive sneakers for violence in inner cities. he tweeted, quote, john has been robbing the hood since. kids dying for shoes and the only face this dude makes is, i don t care t. time will change. mar berry says his shoes are manufactured in the same factory as air jordans the difference they expect to retail for just $15 bucks. joining my panel is a sneaker historian an designer and author of where d you get those new
Americans love sneakers. now one might trace this obsession to run dmc s 1986 track my adidas, after all, me and my adidas do the. . the real marketing obsession that now allows the top makers of basketball choose to sell more than $25 billion worth of shoes a yearsh not including the billion dollar resale market. that started 30 years ago, when nike released the first ever air jordans. jordan in his rookie year create buzz wearing the shoes on the court and bake breaking the uniform rules. on september 15th, nike created a revolutionary new