Bonus Content! Facts That Were Missed In the 'Air' Movie
Via: Amazon Studios
Hollywood has a way of bringing scripts and backstories to life that aren't always as historically accurate as they are portrayed on the big screen. Air, the tale of the historic and game-changing partnership between and , is no different. The film features icons Matt Damon and Viola Davis, and it was directed by Oscar-winner Ben Affleck, who also stars as Nike Founder Phil Knight. Our very own the film before its cinema release earlier this year, but as a bonus for you Jumpman junkies and to celebrate the movie’s release on Blu-ray, we’ve got some facts that didn’t make the Hollywood cut or that were slightly off the mark.
The bulk of movie-goers that have enjoyed the film don't really need to be sneakerheads to appreciate it, and we don't want to take away from the cultural impact of the film. All we want to do is add some rare air authenticity by clarifying a few chunks of dunk data and provide some bonus basketball info since not every slice of the full story made it to the final flick. No spoilers allowed!
Who really coined the term ‘Air Jordan’?
In the movie, Peter Moore, the designer of the , is depicted as the creator of the term ‘ despite it being unofficially recognised as being coined by Jordan's agent, David Falk. Falk had imagined the name around the same time, but Nike beat him to the finish line when it came to ownership. Moore backs this up, as he says in Rodrigo Corral’s book Sneakers, 'We all sat down with Jordan's agent David Falk in his office in Washington DC. Falk said "I've got an idea. I want to marry Michael with your AIR technology. Air Jordan". My immediate reaction was Air Jordan? Like an airline for that Middle Eastern Country? There was no research like there is today. If there was a good idea it was going to be our good idea. It was going to be the Air Jordan.'
How did the promotional hype go down?
When it comes to the origin story of the famous sneaker endorsement and the connection between star player and brand, it's pretty much all in the film. The history of hype that came before it is understandably extraneous for purposes of storylines, but it was the first of its kind. The build-up started approximately 5-6 months before the shoe was released in retail. As Russ Bengtson mentioned in 2020, 'The build-up of that shoe before it was released at retail was 5 or 6 months long, which was fairly unheard of back then. And I think the idea of a new shoe model being such a big deal, and being such a big deal to people other than athletes, was something really different'.
There were plenty of basketball advertising campaigns, commercials and contracts, all catered around the simple format of a player wearing a company's shoe in their team colours. Nike was considered an afterthought in the basketball game during the period surrounding Jordan signing with Nike, as it was mostly Reebok, adidas and Converse. Yet nothing compared to the Jordan silhouette and how desirable it became.
The rise of the Jordan is often attributed to the insane publicity it gained when the NBA started banning MJ from wearing them in his games, which resulted in a fine each time he did wear them. Jordan says in his book For The Love Of The Game, 'Three games into the season, the NBA did us a huge favor. The league banned the shoe because it didn't conform to the rest of the Bulls uniform. But I kept wearing them and David Stern started fining me. I think it started out at $1,000 a game, then $3,000, and eventually $5,000. It would have cost millions of dollars to come up with a promotion that produced as much publicity as the league's ban did. Right after that, sales went crazy.' The movie did touch on this fact briefly, but didn't go into great detail about just how big the effect of this was.
‘I Can Dream About You’ or ‘Jump’?
Towards the end of the film, there is a scene where Nike Vice President and Director of Marketing Rob Strasser, played by Jason Bateman, shows a marketing video to Michael and his parents. The whole film has been leading up to this point, as the career of the young player hinges on the success of this meeting. The lightweight 1984 pop/rock hit 'I Can Dream About You' by Dan Hartman was the track used in the movie's pitch; however, as Peter Moore explains in the 2020 documentary One Man and His Shoes, it was actually the chart-topping electro-pop classic by the Pointer Sisters that soundtracked the pitch to Michael. 'We played him a tape using the Pointer Sisters song Jump, with a highlight reel of him. At the end it showed the wings and the Jordan trademark. But mostly what we had was a program. We were going to make Michael Jordan a marketing superstar.’ Moore confirmed that Jordan was impressed with the boldness of the idea and recalled, 'We went to dinner that night with his parents. At the end of the dinner his mother leaned over and said "Don't worry about it, Michael will be wearing Nike"'.
Where did the Air Jordan logo come from?
The silhouette of the rudimentary prototype shown in that marketing meeting scene featured the Jordan logo of the basketball and the wings. But there was no mention of how that symbol was created. The day after Peter Moore and David Falk had discussed Air Jordan with the star athlete and his parents, Peter sketched 'ideas on a couple of cocktail napkins' on the return flight from the Washington encounter. 'At one point, I looked up and the pilot was out in the cabin, saying hello to everybody, wearing his United Airlines pilot wings badge. That triggered an idea: I sketched the pin's wings but replaced whatever it was in the middle with a basketball. We tended to drink a lot on flights so by the time we arrived in Portland it was an ingenious idea.’
Who is Tinker Hatfield?
The now legendary shoe designer was not included in the film, even though he took over from Peter Moore as the designer of the Air Jordan line, including the through to AJ15 and four anniversary models. Hatfield was actually coached at the University of Oregon by Bill Bowerman, one of the co-founders of Nike. He is an architect by education and worked at Nike for four years before being brought into the design team. He is now known as of the most prominent Nike designers and credited with saving the Air Jordan line when he designed the AJ3. Michael Jordan wasn't happy with the first two models and had been convinced to leave Nike, but his mind was changed when he attended the meeting where Hatfield presented the AJ3. Michael Jordan and Hatfield consequently became close over the years as they worked together on the subsequent models, and MJ said in the Netflix documentary Abstract: The Art of Design that 'Tinker is a mad scientist'.
Who designed the Jumpman logo?
While we’re on the topic of Tinker Hatfield, this leads us to our last inaccuracy in the movie. The movie is set in 1984, and during the end credits, Peter Moore is seen in his studio adding touches to the Jumpman logo. However, the Jumpman pose originated in a photoshoot in 1985, and the logo didn't appear on a shoe until the iconic Jordan 3 design in 1988 – a shoe designed by Tinker Hatfield, who is also credited with designing the historic Jumpman emblem.
Air is available to watch on streaming services now, but the Blu-ray hits shelves on September 12, 2023, with Amazon taking pre-orders already.