In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mars Blackmon, a character played by filmmaker Spike Lee, insisted to an entire generation that “it had to be the shoes.”
Appearing in the same massive Nike TV marketing campaign, Michael Jordan proved to the world it wasn’t.
But what the television commercials started was a new age of athletic fashion appeal.
To say it was a monumental leap is perhaps stretching the truth a bit.
Three decades later, it’s hard to argue that the marketing campaign for athletic shoes became part of mainstream attire.
There’s no question Jordan’s stardom helped skyrocket the market, and Nike, into uncharted waters.