What if Michael Jordan Would Have Signed with Adidas?
Can you imagine that? The game would not be the same without the legendary Air Jordan line, right? No Jordan Brand, no Air Jordan 1, no Air Jordan 3, no Air Jordan 6, and no Air Jordan 11. WOW, the shoe game would be very different. Without a doubt, it will never be a signature sneaker line more popular and more successful than the Air Jordan line.
Thank God Nike scooped Michael Jordan up because that wasn’t his original plan. Did you know that MJ wanted to sign with adidas? Yep, as a matter of fact, MJ told Darren Rovell of CNBC that he never even wore Nike shoes until he signed his Nike contract. adidas was always his favorite shoe, so likewise, MJ wanted to sign with the three stripes. You know how everything turned out, and Mike ended up helping Nike out in a MAJOR way. This is a History Lesson, so check out the video and pay attention!
This is the Nike contract, if you guys come anywhere close – i’ll sign with you guys (adidas) – Michael Jordan
What if MJ would have signed with adidas?
COULDVE BEEN NO BEST SHOE EVER, COULDVE BEEN WACK ADIDAS TEAM LOL
THANKS Adidas!!
Mike = GOAT.
It wouldn’t have mattered, if he signed with Adidas. He would still be just as popular. He would still be as well loved as he is. In short, he would still be a legend. The only thing that would be different is he’d probably have just a few signatures, and they’d have three stripes on them. The shoes didn’t make the man in his case. The man made the shoes.
After the AJII Mike was again prepared to leave Nike for Adiddas. Enter Tinker Hatfield and the AJ III w/vis air and elephant print, and I am sure most of you know that story as well. The man who convinced Nike to offer MJ that big contract in the first place was Legendary coach/player development specialist(turned rogue aint-nba age rule/Brandon Jennings advisor), Sonny Vaccaro. Just filling in a few blanks, I am sure many of you know much more than this, while some will be hearing it for the first time.
Scared money dont make money…
Adidas shouldve matched that Nike offer…
Entire Sneaker Game would be at least 10 years behind where it is now. Not just Basketball kicks but the entire spectrum.
I couldn’t imagine wut it would have been like if jordan wasn’t wit nike
He would have left them eventually for Nike and if not I’d be wearing Patrick Ewing’s or Filas to this day.
I think the tables woulda just flipped meaning adidas would be on top of the game and nike wouldnt have based on a popularity note his ability carried nike to another level and was huge market value both are good companies but jordan was the game breaker
if jordan signed with adidas, I wouldn’t have my collections and I’m pretty sure my bank account would be happy
niggas would be rocking the three strpies & jeezy would have his own Air force one
Nike would have died, Period! Jordan saved their collective @$$e$! I belive they made like 125 miliion with MJ that 1st year.
Nike is not given enough credit. They offered a rookie his own shoe line. (Un heard of). They paid Michael’s fines when he broke dress code violations. Or else those beutiful concords wouldn’t have been in the play offs. Yes Mike was the man, but before he was the man Nike made Mike important. BTW the Jordan 2 started the the consecutive shoes every year witch increased innovation, style, and interest.
LOL man if Jordan wuda signed w/adidas his shoes woulda been ugly! Ive never seen any adidas basketball that i liked. EVER. oop i take that back…i like the crazy 8’s but thats it! lol
cop some J’s for your girl! check my auciton
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250487295569&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT
I fell in love wit tha jordan series back in 93 I wuz only 10 years old it wuz tha og playoff 8’s and I wonder would I b into shoes like I am now if it wasn’t 4 that shoe not bn a nike air jordan
…and you heard it from the man himself. Throughout college he wore Converse.
well man ADIDAS already had the SHELLTOE now imagen if MJ would have been added to the MIX I THINK MOST of our collection would have looked very different…..
If mike signed wit addidas I would have saved $5,000,000 in shoes from the time I was born till now (20 years old now) lol…but yee the show game would be different nike wouldn’t be Nike addidas wouldn’t be addidas things would be sooooooooooo different
thats crazy. imagine life without the jumpman logo…
yea i agree with converse king, the shoes didnt make the man, he made the shoes, what would have happened if he would have singed with addidas? people would still buy his sneakers only because he is michael jordan, his name gave him fame, not the kicks. the kicks just gave him style. and yes youre right converse king, from the 50’s all the throught the late 80’s, converse was a popular shoe because at the time lets face it, players like larry bird, magic johnson, alex english, james worthy (NC teammate) isaih thomas, and etc, all wore converse because it was the shoe to wear….then came air jordan and reebok with a couple of sponsors like shaq and shawn kemp, and it was over, they just took it over. but reality is converse did start it all so kudos to them, and as of addidas? ehhh why not kick it with all black and white stripes?
I probably would not even be into J’s because the design wouldnt have been the same…the Jordan 1 is a NIKE, first and foremost, and the 3 would not have been created by any other brand, nor the 4-6….None would be possible without Tinker, and he worked for NIKE…..of course, the 1 and 3-6, are MY favorite J’s so I can honestly say that without these, I would not even rock a Jordan, no matter what brand made it…..What we should say is: what would have happened if Tinker signed with Adidas?…lol
IF shouldn’t be in the dictionary….I’m feeling MJ on that
Adidas didnt have Nike’s shoe designers at the time. No tinker hatfield. Adidas didnt have Nike’s advertising team at that time. No wieden & kennedy or spike lee.
Adidas didnt have the right components for Mike.
Remember there were some dope great NBA players that wore some nice shoes but it didnt translate cause the shoe company didnt know how to market them.
if Adidas couldnt market Kobe or T-mac or the right way, what u think they woulda done with Mike?
Thank god everything worked out for the better!!
Adidas only did one great market campaign and that was for Run-Dmc, but remember Run-DMC came to them they didnt go to the group!
seen this video a while back, and im still happy he didnt sign with adidas! man just imagine a white red & black adidas! fugly!!!!
THANK GOD….adidas lacks creativity… good shoes, but they got nothing on nike
I have some additional info on Adidas to share with you all. Adidas made stormtrooper boots for the German Army during WW2, and they also made Panzerschrecks, which are the German Equivalent of a bazooka. The reason for this is because Germany was losing, and they were desperate for a factory to make weapons and ammunition, because we bombed a ton of their factories. Toward the end of the war, the allies discovered the factory. But someone had notified them that the Americans were coming, and they hid all the equipment for making Panzerschrecks, and were making footwear at the time. Additionally, the name Adidas comes from one of the founders Adolf Dassler. His nickname was “Adi”, and he just shortened it to Adidas. He had a brother called Rudolph who ran the business with him during the war and until 1948, when Rudolph Dassler went on to found what we know today as Puma. Both brothers were members of the Nazi party.
good thing mike signed with nike i dont like adidas if he did sign with adidas i wouldnt have as many shoes as i have now
Co-sign w/Brandan E.
I wanted to drop kick every dude that I came across rockin those Kobe 1’s (robot/tin man lookin p.o.s.) & those fugly azz Crazy 8’s. I actually liked the T-Mac’s except for those supposedly “cuttin edge technology” no lace joints that u had to pull on the heel – kinda like a brake harness mechanism on a bike….total FAIL.
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Converse King, so u mean to tell me I wuz supportin terrorism & Hitler Nazi Swastika Volkswagen BMW Porche Mercedes-Benz Maybach all this time? The pain is deep….like Kid Cudi
Well, it doesn’t matter anymore CenValCali, because Adidas are made in China now. Pumas are made in Asia as well. Puma and Adidas both still have their headquarters in Germany. But the thing about Germany today is Nazism is illegal now. In Germany you can go to jail for being a Nazi. Anything having to do with Nazis in Germany is illegal including the swastika. The swastika and other Nazi related things can only be used in Germany for artistic purposes, not hate. So in short, if you were purchasing products made when the Dassler brothers owned their companies, then you were in fact purchasing a product made by Nazis. But these days that isn’t the case at all.
Converse King dropping knowledge!
Good stuff! Like Mike said though,
with Adidas being mainly concerned
with the inland market, I dont think that
they would’ve knew what kind of “mover and shaker”
of the world they would’ve had on their hands BUT
the world will never know
IF MJ SIGNED WITH ADIDAS WE WOULD ALL BE ON THAT “ALL DAY I DREAM ABOUT SEX” MJ SHOE.
Right on Converse King….I wuz ’bout to curl up in the corner of my room in isolation wit pain killers on hand. Anyhow, I went to high school wit an “associate” who smoked pot all the time. 1 day, he decided to bring his Gramma to school for extra credit purposes & show n’ tell. Back of my mind wuz “WTF?” & we were studyin ’bout WW2. I didn’t realize that she wuz a Concentration Camp survior. It wuz an eye openin experience/lecture that day. She remembers vividly as a little girl & told us how her family & friends would slowly disappear as the days go by….
Yeah CenValCali, Germany today feels very bad (and should) for what their countrymen did when Hitler ran the show. I have a friend who is German, and he has told me that mentioning Hitler to Germans makes them uncomfortable even now. He also told me it is considered a national embarrassment. It is a very different country from what it was then. Germany recently (over the past few years) has decided to step up their alliance with Israel as well.
The shoe game would not be what it is today if Nike would not have grabed Jordan… Of course the shoe dosent make the man, the man makes the shoe, but how many shoes would Jordan have had with Adidas… Nike made history by giving this superstar his own shoe every year he played… It created more hype the shoe industry ever seen… Since he was seemingly the best player in the game of basketball, people bought his shoes every year because it was like having a piece of the best player ever… people wernt just buying the shoes they were buying into the hype that the best player in the world is wearing this shoe and they felt like GODS while wearing Jordans shoe… Nike played on that hype… Nike marketed the shoes as an experence not as just a product…. People became more aware of the release dates of these shoes from built up anticipation of the next shoe for the next season… If you were the first to have the shoe you were the coolest. and if you had em every year you were the freshest nigga in the country (at least in your own mind)…Thats why i believe that people would not feel the way they do about shoes now if it wasnt for the combination of Michael Jordan and Nike.
^converse king, for someone who only likes retro 5’s determined by your comments u sure got alot to say about mike’s career.which website did you get info all that info and how long does it take to cut in paste to here because i know you don’t know that from the top of your head.ur not toyko mike a wise sneakerhead.
I read o.s.t. because it helps to be smart, and knowledge is power. Also, I watch the History channel, and the international History channel (yes, there are two). I didn’t cut and paste anything.
^I thought it was natzi?
No, it’s Nazi. The “z” has a “tz” sound.
I would love to see someone come up with some adidas air jordan’s as like a way of saying this is what adidas ould have looked like if Jordan had a sneaker line with adidas
then again, I am not sure if adidas would have even done what Nike did with its shoes.
Aahh I just had a horrible daydream. Love the shelltoes tho.
when you think about it, you can kinda see what jordans shoes would be if he had signed with adidas. look what happened to kobe, his sneakers were garbage, who remembers the kobe moon shoe. who the hell thought that would be cool
MJ was like “Adidas if can you match Nike’s offer and add a white girl to the deal and I’m yours”
^Wow. converse king that dope some people these days don’t like reading.it’s sad.in cali most of the teens at my school just walk around jerking,chasing hood rat chicks and dudes,and guys pants falling off their ass with flat ass vans on.it makes me sick.i have to look at my j’z several times a day in class to think besides them being $40 a pair y else wears vans.and u guys think the air jordan retro 1’s got to many colorways.go into a vans store but with 1 eye open so u don’t messed up your vision.
^^Jshuttlesworth tellin the truth right there…..MJ was being a cocky f***er and talking about leaving Nike for Adidas……his dad MADE him go to a meeting, where Tinker Jesus Hatfield Christ unveiled the GREATEST SHOE OF ALL TIME, THE BLACK/CEMENT AJ3…..and the rest is history. If MJ woulda went with Adidas, man, I don’t even want to imagine a world like that.
Jordans 1-6 = GREATEST SNEAKERS EVER……and the blueprint for our sneakerhead world.
Thanks ConverseKing for dropping some science on us….I will agree with ATLdunkJunkie and take it somewhere else… In my little humble opinion I believe that JORDAN and TINKER are products of destiny/fate whatever you want to call it…. it’s like MICHAELANGELO & THE SISTINE CHAPLE….MICHAEL JACKSON & THE MOONWALK (a lot of folks don’t even know that Mike didn’t invent the moonwalk..he saw Ozone doing it in ELECTRIC BOOGALOO and just copied it…) STEVIE WONDER & THE PIANO, BIGGIE & PUFFY, MAGIC & THE ‘NO-LOOK PASS, STOCKTON & MALONE, CORNFLAKES & MILK. It’s a combination of TIME meeting OPPORTUNITY & TALENT… You can not isolate those combos for they are insignificant without the other…..The reason why MJ is considered the G.O.A.T is not because he won the most titles…shoot I think Horry got 7.LOLOLOL, or had the most assists, steals, blocks or whatever other stat you can name… it’s because when it came to the game of basketball, he REFUSED TO LOSE when it COUNTED most…..and he ALWAYS was the ONE crushing others hopes and dreams of winning…He played the mental game better than anyone that’s why he says stuff like “IF shouldn’t be in the dictionary”…. He never allowed obstacles to stop him from achieving his goals… KOBE/LEBRON/SHAQ/DUNCAN/EWING/MALONE/STOCKTON/BIRD/MAGIC and the list goes on, have seen the FINALS TROPHY snatched away by someone else…NOT MJ he totally dominated and destroyed his opponents chances of winning. The shoes were a product of the man’s accomplishments, but the shoes only came about because of a guy called TINKER..(MJ almost didn’t go to the meeting to see the revealing of the AJ3..He was actually going to leave Nike and his parents convinced him to go to the meeting on the strength of being a man of his word)… No JORDAN…. no one to push TINKER to his design limits… No Tinker, no one to keep MJ around… GET MY POINT… No Diddy, no READY TO DIE… but at the same token… no BIGGIE…there’s no DIDDY and what we know as BADBOY today…..
that’s mad funny tokyomike – I didn’t even read your post until I posted mine…LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Add to this they were offered the air max technology first and declined that too. Wow they made some costly mistakes in the 80’s I hope there isn’t any one wondering why adidas is second in the world. No MJ and and air max are the reasons
Yes the shoe game would be very very different… but not to us.. we would rock adidas like we’re rocking our nikes.
I though some of you would like to know that Jesse Owens also wore adidas in the 1936 olympics
one thing people are also forgetting is nike was struggling to stay in buisness before they sighned MJ and took a huge risk in sighning in signing him as a rookie but it paid off for the both of them obviously ! can u imagine the shoegame without nike or the jumpman logo? because as jordan just said no one was really big into nike at that time
that would have been catostrophic
TokyoMike where did you hear it was the black model that Thinker showed to Jordan? I’ve always wondered what color was first shown to him.
It wouldn’t matter if they still looked good….But if they were ugly, it would’ve saved me A LOT of money lol
It probably wouldn’t have been different…. jordan brand was a brand made from nike. Why couldnt he have just done the same thing with Adidas? So instead of a nike sign it would’ve been a Adidas sign.All the same shoes just a minor difference. Maybe im wrong