Jordan may be retired but his product line is thriving. It's a beast onto itself.
And yes, I know the shoes aren't necessarily inherently better than a cheap pair of sneakers but, hey, it's a cool shoe that can't be beat. I don't know how you quantify cool but those shoes are cool.
Interesting to see how this compares & will play out compared to other deals (Under Armour has equity deals with Brady / Curry) which insinuates longer term deals - even if it's not explicit.
This is a reasonable thing to say, but celebrity branding doesn't necessarily get better with time, and I think is actually particularly unlikely to do so compared to other forms of branding.
Part of the reason for Jordan's success is that he's the GOAT - and an umbrella for other players. His "Jordan" line doesn't just include his signature shoes, but players like CP3, Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony and Russel Westbrook.
Way easier to pull in other players after you're retired than it is while you're still in the game. That's why you're seeing Jordan take up 58% of the basketball shoe market.
It's apparently also booming in China:
For what it's worth, Drake is wearing an Air Jordan t-shirt in latest music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxpDa-c-4Mc), which has already reached 180+ million views since the end of October. I'm in my middle 30s so I've only heard about Drake at the start of this year, but he seems to be quite influential among younger people. He's also wearing one of those Moncler things, the video reminded me of the famous "They Live" sunglasses scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inZUDMGJsKo).
There are at least a few new Jordan sneakers released every single week.
I had to read that last figure twice...the first time, I thought it meant $2.6 billion total, which seems like a reasonable amount of revenue for one line of shoes...but _per year_? Named for an athlete who has long been retired? Half a billion for the next great player (though of course some don't think LeBron will necessarily surpass Jordan's legend) seems like a bargain for Nike.