Behind Michael Jordan’s Nike deal, ‘Air’ shows how his parents helped make shoe history
Michael Jordan’s legacy looms large in “Air,” the new film about his endorsement deal with Nike that launched the Air Jordan sneaker and one of the most successful partnerships ever.
But the movie shines a bright spotlight on Jordan’s parents, who played a key role in making sneaker history happen.
James Jordan, played by Julius Tennon, and Deloris Jordan, played by Viola Davis, attended pitch meetings with their son with Converse, Adidas and Nike. Tennon and Davis are married in real life.
Eventually, Jordan’s deal with Nike came as an NBA rookie in 1984 following his three-year college career playing basketball at UNC-Chapel Hill, from 1981 to 1984. The movie references Jordan’s time at UNC — and his famous game-winning shot at the 1982 national championship.
The movie, directed by Ben Affleck, shows Nike salesman Sonny Vaccaro (played by Matt Damon) fighting an uphill battle to get the deal done. He gets pushback from Nike executives and Jordan’s agent, David Falk (played by Chris Messina), who tells Vaccaro on a phone call that Jordan wants a shoe deal with either Converse — the leading basketball shoe brand at the time, and the brand worn by UNC during Jordan’s time there — or Adidas, which Falk says Jordan wore during practices.
As Vaccaro continues to pursue the deal with Jordan, he decides — against the advice and urging of Falk — to visit Jordan’s parents at their home in Wilmington.
Here’s more to know about Jordan’s parents.
Who are James and Deloris Jordan?
The Jordans were born in North Carolina and met while attending Charity High School in Rose Hill. They moved away from the state while James Jordan was in the military and Deloris attended trade school. They moved back to North Carolina before leaving again for Brooklyn, New York, where Michael was born.
They moved back to North Carolina, to Wilmington, in 1968. In “Air,” Deloris Jordan tells Vaccaro that “five generations of Jordans” have lived in the area.
Michael, the Jordans’ youngest son, grew up in Wilmington and attended Laney High School. There, he failed to make the school’s varsity basketball team as a sophomore — a story that also gets a mention in “Air.”
How does the Nike deal happen?
The question of how that deal came to be has been addressed over the years, including in the 2020 documentary series “The Last Dance,” which detailed much of Jordan’s career and his final NBA championship with the Chicago Bulls.
As seen in “Air,” Vaccaro attends a meeting at Nike headquarters in Oregon with other Nike employees tasked with determining which NBA rookie players the brand will sign for endorsement deals that year.
During the meeting, Nike marketing executive Rob Strasser (played by Jason Bateman), suggests several possible names and projects photos of the players, including Jordan. He is quickly dismissed because the company “can’t afford him.”
Vaccaro tells Strasser that he wants Nike to sign only Jordan for the 1984 season, not three rookies as the company intended, and build a unique shoe around him, much like UNC men’s basketball Coach Dean Smith built the championship-winning play around him in 1982.
Later, in Nike’s pitch meeting to the Jordans, Vaccaro makes a passionate speech focused on the greatness that he anticipates Michael will go on to have as a professional athlete, saying it will come in spite of events in his personal life that may break him.
During that scene, flashes of Jordan’s real-life career and later life flash onto the screen, including images that allude to the 1993 murder of James Jordan. James was fatally shot while sleeping in his car in Lumberton, a city in Robeson County near the North-South Carolina border. James Jordan’s body was found several days later in South Carolina.
The images shown in the film include what appears to be the car Jordan was murdered in while he was taking a roadside nap, and a newspaper clipping from The Fayetteville Observer reporting his death.
Where is Deloris Jordan now?
As mentioned at the end of the movie, Deloris Jordan moved to Chicago, where Michael was playing in the NBA, after her husband died. She continues to live there today.
She created and serves as president of the James R. Jordan Foundation to provide children with academic support and “a pathway out of poverty by empowering youth to achieve their full potential,” according to the foundation’s website.
There’s an Air Jordan named in her honor, called Dear Deloris, that’s crimson and white suede. Nike says it’s “inspired by the color motifs in the Wilmington, NC home MJ’s mother Deloris kept while he was a burgeoning professional star.”
How to watch ‘Air’ movie
“Air” premieres in movie theaters April 5. Learn more and find a showing near you at mgmstudios.com/air.
The film will later be available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video, but a release date has not been announced.
