Title: Air
Rating: 3 Stars
It seems like it’s been a slow start for 2023 films. Not many have caught my eye. Air seems to have a bit of buzz around it right now.
Air is the story of Nike getting its first sponsorship deal with Michael Jordan. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe to believe that there was a time when neither Nike nor Jordan were considered juggernauts. In particular, Nike was almost a non-factor in the basketball shoe business. Converse had by far the largest market share while Adidas, with its apparel line, was considered the cool brand. Nike was considered to be a low budget non-contender.
Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), working at Nike, felt compelled to change this. Vaccaro understood that Nike’s strategy of spreading its relatively low budget among a number of athletes selected lower in the draft was going to continue its pattern of mediocrity, possibly leading to the death of the basketball division of Nike.
Vaccaro advocated spending Nike’s entire budget on one athlete. Which athlete should he choose? One night, watching college basketball highlights, he became transfixed by Michael Jordan’s last second shot in the NCAA championship. Convinced that Jordan had the potential to be a transformational athlete, Vaccaro became obsessed with landing him.
Although he was stymied by the twin hurdles of Jordan’s strong preference for Adidas and Nike’s suspicion of his one athlete strategy, Vaccaro persevered. This is his story of how he overcame the resistance of the Jordan family and Nike corporate inertia.
First things first. The film is well made. Directed by Ben Affleck, the film does a great job of capturing the mid 1980s. The film is well acted. Particularly worthy of mention is Ben Affleck’s portrayal of Phil Knight as a kind of West coast liberal, Buddhist, egotistical, cautious corporate founder. Also worthy is Viola Davis as Jordan’s mother, Chris Tucker as a Nike executive, and Chris Messina as the bombastic player agent David Falk.
It is also about a significant moment in sports history. The deal with Jordan made Nike a player in the basketball shoe business, a business that it would eventually dominate. Not only that, but the Jordan deal was historic in that it was the first time that a player got a percentage of the sales of his shoe. Before that, the standard was that a shoe company would pay a flat license fee for a player to wear their shoes.
The Nike deal changed that in a couple of ways. Significantly, the athlete became the focal point instead of the shoe. Nike designed a shoe that was specific to Jordan. Today, all prominent basketball players have their own custom designed shoe, complete with model years. Secondly, the change from licensing to a piece of the revenue led athletes to tremendous, generational wealth. Today, it’s estimated that Jordan alone earns some 400 million dollars a year from Nike.
All of that is interesting. I’d probably even read a book about it. However, is this really a subject for a film? At the end of the day, it’s the story about a rich corporation negotiating a contract with a rich athlete, making both exponentially richer. It was kind of like watching a film about the Exxon and Mobil merger. Or maybe a film about the time, when I was a lead developer on a large software team, that we released a block point on schedule. It was exciting for us but I’m not sure if there were a large number of cinematic moments to engage a film audience.
Is the signing of a contract really worth a two hour film? Near the conclusion, when Phil Knight gives Vaccaro the approval to include the profit sharing clause into the contract, the background music swelled like it was the Braveheart battle speech. It struck me as a bit silly.
Don’t get me wrong. Michael Jordan is one of the greatest players in the game. He and I are about the same age, so I watched his basketball career with great interest. I remember watching his 63 point playoff game in 1986 against the Boston Celtics, one of the great basketball teams of all time. Even though the Bulls lost in double overtime, watching Jordan play essentially a game of one on five against a team of future Hall of Fame legends was incredible. Afterwards, Larry Bird claimed that he was God disguised as Michael Jordan.
In a film like this, you want to root for the underdog. We know, with the passage of time, that there is no underdog in this story. Nike became a dominate force in the shoe business that eventually got into trouble using overseas child labor. Jordan became a six time champion whose competitive spirit is so unquenchable and seemingly carries a permanent chip on his shoulder that it made him a difficult person and a challenging teammate.
Knowing this, it was hard for me to root for either Nike or Jordan.
dorkenstein 