A pair of $ 560,000 Nike Air Jordan sneakers not only refreshed the world record for the auction value of sports shoes, but also allowed people to see the cultural and economic value represented by the sneakers.
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “BoF Fashion Business Review” (ID: Business_of_Fashion) .
OF: Irina Li
Edit: Queennie Yang
New York, USA— $ 560,000 is the final price of a pair of Nike Air Jordan shoes finally hammered at the Sotheby ’s auction. It also broke the previous world record of $ 437.5 million in sports shoe auctions. This pair of shoes was born because of legendary star Michael Jordan, and the cultural and economic value it carries has far exceeded people’s imagination.
This is not the first time Sotheby ’s has specially organized auctions for sneakers. Among them are Nike Moon Shoe, Adidas Karl Lagerfeld and other highly collectible and commemorative works, but they are not comparable to the first-generation Air Jordan signature The fierce bid for the sneakers, the transaction price eventually exceeded the auction house’s original expectations of 100,000 US dollars more than 5 times.
“Until the end of the auction, there were still a lot of auctions, and in the last hour, the auction price of these shoes more than doubled,” said Brahm Wachter, head of Sotheby ’s e-commerce business: Bidders from 6 different countries on 4 continents not only showed Jordan’s strong personal charm, but also proved that the value of the collection of sneakers is recognized globally and is increasing day by day. “
In fact, today’s AJ effect, and the resulting investment in sneakers, were replaced by Nike and Jordan at the beginning of the establishment of cooperation.
Looking forward to the future 36 years ago
In 1984, when Nike dropped $ 2.5 million and spent a lot of money to sign a 5-year cooperation agreement with Jordan, he had just finished his studies and joined the Chicago Bulls as a rookie. Converse and Adidas, which seized the market opportunities early, were already the two most widely known sneaker brands in the basketball world and their audiences at that time and were regarded as “trends.” For Nike, the investment in Jordan is the biggest to open up the NBA marketThe bargaining chip, the potential and true strength of this young star, directly affects its success or failure.
From Jordan ’s point of view, Nike is not the best partner for the beginning of his career. Adidas with a higher market share and more skill in the field of shoes should be the first target-with Magic Johnson (Earvin Johnson), Larry Bird (Larry Bird) and other well-known stars reached a cooperation Converse, little interest in rookie players. But under the audacious planning of his agent David Falk, Jordan got Nike’s signing fee much higher than the market price, and at the same time, he also created a new business cooperation model that is different from ordinary sponsorship, that is, he tailored a dedicated sneaker series. Air Jordan “.
Nike ’s desperation, Jordan ’s innovative attempts, together contributed to the birth of the first generation of Air Jordan shoes, which not only witnessed the legendary career of the star ’s professional basketball career, but also opened Nike in the field of shoes and the NBA industry The prologue of the development will lay a solid foundation for its future giant status. Today, Air Jordan has been updated to the 34th generation. Nike also replaced Adidas in 2015. It signed an eight-year agreement with the NBA and became the first cooperative brand to put its own logo on the league jersey.
a symbol of a generation of young culture
The Bulls ’iconic reds and blacks became the color scheme of the Air Jordan in the early days, and they are highly recognizable. But it is precisely because of the bright color design that the NBA ordered in 1985 to violate Jordan’s uniform regulations, prohibiting Jordan from continuing to wear this shoe on the court. Not only did Nike not be suppressed because of this, but instead actively promoted that the NBA can restrict the dress on the court, but it cannot restrain people’s pursuit and love in life.
Since then, in addition to the sportsmanship of “Flying Jordan”, Air Jordan has added another layer of symbolic connotation-advocating personality and being faithful to self-expression. “Jordan Effect” author Roy Johnson said that before Jordan, shoes were only for players, but suddenly, shoes became a fashion and a culture. Hip-hop singer Nas recalled in the current Jordanian documentary “The Last Dance” that, to young children at the time, Air Jordan was like the lightsaber in “Star Wars”. As powerful as Jordan. Basketball fans, trend culture enthusiasts, and teenagers eager to advertise their personalities are all attracted to Air Jordan shoes.
In this Air Jordan Sotheby ’s auction event, the age distribution of participants ranged from 19 to over 50 years old, and 70% of the bidders were the new audience of the auction house, specially for the shoes. At the same time broadcast the mostThe last episode of the documentary “The Last Dance” also happened to arouse people’s memories of Jordan and its creation of the golden age, cultural trends and other memories. Its publisher ESPN said that the average audience of the documentary reached 6.1 million Became the most watched documentary in the company’s history.
Promotion of collectors and platforms
“The Last Dance” and the Jordan wave that it set off are a key opportunity for Air Jordan shoes to be auctioned, and further promoted the growth of the shoe collection market. The original owner of this pair of Jordan shoes, Jordan Geller, is a shoe collector. He founded a sports shoe museum in Las Vegas. After paying close attention to the market dynamics, he decided that it was time to bring out the “treasure of the town pavilion” that has been collected for 8 years and “monetize” it.
In the secondary market, the phenomenon of “scrambled shoes” gathered by sneakers of different sizes has become quite active, and shoes with high awareness but relatively scarce tend to be popular and their value will also be fast Rising, profits are generated accordingly. Data from New York sneaker trading platform Stock X shows that between January 1 and April 18 this year, 217 pairs of 2015 Air Jordan 1 Chicago Retro series sneakers were sold at an average price of $ 925. The trend media website Highsnobiety’s 2019 second-hand sneaker industry observation report shows that the global second-hand sneaker market size may have reached 6 billion US dollars.
Including auction houses like Sotheby ’s, I also saw the value of the collection of sneakers. Since last year, Sotheby ’s, known for auctioning art and cultural relics, has officially organized an auction for shoes, and has collaborated with Stadium Goods, a New York shoe consignment platform, to auction 100 pairs of classic shoes. In addition to Jordan’s own cultural symbols and commercial benefits, these sneaker collectors and industry platforms have taken a more professional perspective and brought the economic value of sneakers at a practical level. Therefore, the value of a pair of sneakers can be defined by 560,000 US dollars.