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Swish to Swoosh: Corporations Dominating Modern Sport
“Make me like Mike” has been uttered by millions of children across the United States
and around the world in idolization of the greatest basketball player in the history of the sport:
Michael Jordan. Starting as a singular man striving to be the best thanks to hard work and a
competitive drive second to none, both a sports and a business franchise were built on his
capable shoulders and grew thanks to his talents and personality. In the construction of Michael
Jordan the Marketing Dream Machine, the sports world was refashioned and built into a stronger
capitalistic-driven commercial entity thanks largely in part to Nike and other corporate sponsors
and advertisers leading the way with their wallets.
The story of Michael Jordan being cut from his varsity high school basketball team as a
sophomore is well-known, but the story of commercial growth in the world of sports is discussed
to a much lesser degree. Sponsors and advertisers have become the bloodline fueling leagues,
and the push for official licensing has grown into a largely contested and significant cash cow for
the leagues, teams, athletes, and corporate sponsors in modern sport. Spalding acted as the only
dominate commercial presence in the beginning of basketball’s growth in the 1890s. By
introducing guidelines and rulebooks calling for the exclusive use of Spalding equipment, the
company “effectively produced and sold the new ball now standard for the game” (LaFeber 36).
This early introduction gave Spalding a monopoly over the production of these standard
basketballs, and they even remain the official basketball of the NBA today. That type of
stranglehold on a sports league of the NBA’s size would be nearly impossible now thanks largely
in part to Michael Jordan’s work with Nike. When Jordan began to play for the lackluster
Chicago Bulls in 1984, he only had a $200,000 endorsement deal for a basketball with Wilson
Sporting Goods (50). Most African American players and athletes struggled to receive many
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endorsements due to the racist belief that they were hard to market and could not sell products.
Luckily, a perfect storm developed at the start of Jordan’s career. The sport started off popular
in college before professional leagues, and Jordan’s college career certainly helped build him a
brand worthy of getting endorsements (Ruck “From the ancient Olympics…”). Nike, founded in
the 1960s, was working on building up their brand as the athletes’ choice. As rebellious
businessmen and entrepreneurs, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman “directly, and successfully,
challenged sports promoters” and the traditional controllers of sport (LaFeber 61). Agent David
Falk, an attorney who represented athletes in both contract negotiations and endorsement deals,
brought Knight and Jordan together in 1984 giving Nike the athlete it needed to pioneer the
market (63).
At this time, Jordan’s popularity was on the rise; he was showing his true talent and the
skills he worked tirelessly to perfect despite being on a team barely able to stumble into the
playoffs. His endorsements were also on the rise. Already early in his career, he was “probably
… the world’s richest athlete … Increasing amounts of Jordan’s celebrity and money came from
selling Nike sneakers in the United States and, indeed, around the globe” (54). With the power
Nike held, they are able to promote and sell athletes on a larger scale than ever seen. Most
notably, Nike made an African American athlete the star they wanted to market. After the
purchase of the Bulls by a wealthy Chicago real-estate developer and his implementation of a
new general manager and coach, Michael Jordan’s game reached a new level and earned him the
admiration of many around the league he had originally ostracized with his flashy performance
in the 1985 All-Star game. He was making $17 million dollars by the 1990-1991 season with
approximately $13.75 million of his salary coming from endorsements (54). In comparison
when Jordan began to play for the Bulls, “The franchise’s estimated worth was $18.7 million …”
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(49). Companies like Nike were able to pay players like Jordan, Barkley, and Pippen these
unheard of sums of money thanks largely in part to their ability to profit off of these stars.
By the early 1990s, Nike and Jordan seemed to be mirroring one another with
controversies but still found their products were able to sell. Jordan’s associations with
gamblers and betting nearly reflected Nike’s issues with their treatment of laborers in foreign
countries, specifically in Asia. Jordan with his agent Falk was able to negotiate deals worth
millions of dollars with many businesses for a player as recognizable and beloved as he had
become due largely in part to his partnership with Nike and their advertisers (94). In 1992,
“Reebok had paid $4 million to the U.S. Olympic Committee for” the prime advertising realestate on the Olympic team’s suits to be worn on the winner’s stand (100). With Reebok being
the biggest competitor to Nike and Phil Knight, Jordan showed how much Nike was an influence
on him. Publicly stating “I don’t believe in endorsing my competition … I feel very strongly
about loyalty to my own company” and then covering the Reebok symbol with the American
flag draped around him, Jordan showed where his loyalties lied (100). Michael Jordan the
athlete America and the world easily grew to love made Nike one of his top priorities, which was
unprecedented at the time and shows how powerful and dominant the company was in the mind
of its biggest advertising tool.
Most athletes even remotely close to having his influence on the game were not placing
the importance of sponsors first and even many of his teammates who were sponsored by Nike
did not take the steps he did to show brand loyalty. This might be due to the fact that Nike with
Knight at the helm was expanding their global entity into a powerhouse, and Jordan could see his
star benefit from this alliance. “In 1991 European sales had doubled. The upsurge came even
before Knight geared up to exploit the 1992 Olympics. He obtained exclusive coverage for his
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products on the pan-European cable powerhouse, Eurosport. Ads featuring Michael Jordan ran
on Eurosport and MTV Europe” (108). On top of this, “Nike’s $4 billion in annual revenue
nearly doubled that of its closest competitor” (102). With Nike becoming a top global soft
power, there was almost nothing stopping them. They were even able to spread the use of the
English language, and “by the 1990s, some seventy percent of Western Europeans ages eighteen
to twenty-four spoke English … It was the young who idolized Jordan … and who bought
sneakers and Chicago Bulls’ clothing” (109). Nike had the power to influence culture and used
Jordan as their figure. Companies like McDonalds’ jumped in on the chance to use the goodwill
Nike had helped Jordan build. Smiling to the camera he told the people, the mob, the mass “I’m
hungry for a Big Mac” (118).
This mass globalization and marketing molded the NBA back into a new golden age last
seen in the 1950s and 60s (Ruck “From the ancient Olympics …”). The way basketball and all
sports were being presented was new territory for the world as we know it today, and new media
was being brought into this globalized society. With this newly connected world, Michael
Jordan was able to reach an even wider audience with Nike leading the way with Air Jordan
commercials.
Phil Knight once remarked that “Michael Jordan is the greatest endorser of the 20th
century” (LaFeber 134). If Jordan was the greatest endorser, the NBA and Nike surely benefited
from the partnership. LaFeber notes:
“In mid-1998, Fortune magazine estimated that Jordan had at least a $10-billion impact
on the U.S. economy. About half, or $5.2 billion, benefited Nike. Another $3.1 billion of
increased sales of NBA-licensed clothing (especially with the No. 23 on them) had
passed through registers since Jordan entered the League” (137).
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The NBA finally had a player that stood above the rest but clearly was not loyal to his advertisers
after choosing to partner with Converse. As recently as 2006, the battle for the position of the
official uniform and apparel supplier of the NBA ended with Nike losing out to Adidas thanks to
its acquisition of Reebok (Rovell “NBA Laces Up …”). Nike, not to be outdone by the eleven
year contract and partnership set up between Commissioner Stern and Adidas president and CEO
Stamminger, has made itself the top brand of the players with 278 current NBA players being
endorsed by Nike and thirty-two under the Jordan Brand (still under the division of Nike)
compared to the seventy-one players sponsored by Adidas (Heitner “Nike in Clear Control …”).
Nike molded Jordan into the highly marketed player we know him as today, and with this image,
he was able to assert an influence as a role model to the current stars and benchwarmers we see
in the sport today. After receiving “financial backing from Phil Knight’s Nike, the Jordan line
was projected to take in $250 million in gross revenue during its first year –a figure that
immediately made it one of the nation’s largest clothing business”(LaFeber 136). By giving
Jordan this kind of financial and emotional backing by supporting his endeavors, Nike was able
to curve losses it would later receive due to a backlash over its over-prevalent place in the dayto-day lives of people across the globe. When the backlash hit Nike, “One line of Nikes,
however, defied the sales downturn trend: Michael Jordan’s brand increased in sales by fiftyseven percent while every other major category of Nike footwear sold in the United States
suffered steep falloffs” (150). Nike protected its brand by building it on a strong foundation and
doing a lot of public relations and advertising for a personality as wonderful as Michael as well
as someone with the skills and drive he had.
While Michael Jordan ended his career in 2003 (as a Washington Wizard),
advertisements featuring him in Hanes shirts and underwear are widely viewed today, and he
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remains an ever present figure in the public eye due mostly to Nike’s strong efforts to make a
pioneer for branding even with strong sales from other divisions of its corporation. The power
within sponsorship, advertisers, and even some corporations that act as owners (Ruck “Sports
Today”) takes on a different look now. Like Jordan, the global community has grown
accustomed to how athletes are viewed in the public eye and how they deal with sponsorships.
While it was all new with Jordan at the beginning of his career, the way society deals with
marketable players cannot go back to the way it was. Major athletes in all sports are sure to
continue the traditions Jordan innovated into the largest marketing figure, follow his footsteps in
endorsement deals, and “Just do it.”
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Works Cited
Heitner, Darren. "Nike In Clear Control Of NBA Sneaker Wars With Over 270 Players
Endorsing Brand." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 27 Dec. 2013. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2013/12/27/nike-in-clear-control-of-nbasneaker-wars-with-over-270-players-under-contract/>.
LaFeber, Walter. Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism. New York: W.W. Norton &,
2002. Print.
Rovell, Darren. "NBA Laces up Adidas for 11-year partnership." ESPN.com. The Disney
Publishing Group, 18 Apr. 2006. Web. 18 Jan. 2014.
<http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2404020>.
Ruck, Rob. "From the ancient Olympics to Corporate Moneyball & Westernization, Capitalism,
Industrialization, and Democratization." History of Sport Course. United States,
Pittsburgh. 15 Jan. 2014. Lecture.
Ruck, Rob. "Sport Today." History of Sport Course. United States, Pittsburgh. 8 Jan. 2014.
Lecture.