By Did you know that when the Air Jordan 1 was first released it was just known as Nike Air Jordan. These shoes hit the shelves in 1985 after Michael Jordan signed a $2.5 million dollar (Would be about $6million today if adjusted for inflation) endorsement deal with Nike. This line of shoes all started here but it could have turned out differently if Jordan had received the deal with Adidas that he originally wanted. Prior to the invention of the Air Jordan line, Michael Jordan would wear what was known as the Nike Air Ship (Image included below).
Some fans at the time thought Nike was getting ahead of themselves as Michael Jordan was a rookie at the time and was picked third in the draft. He soon after scored 62 points against the Celtics which shut all the critics down. The first pair released was the Jordan 1 Retro Bred “Banned”. They got the name Bred from being a combination of Black and Red and the “Banned” nickname came from the fact that Michael Jordan would be fined $5000 every game for wearing them. The reason he was fined was because the colors were not permitted to be worn with his home colors and Nike made an effort to pay this fine every game as they thought it was a good marketing strategy (how right they were!). The next colorway released was the OG White and Black – Red AJ1. The third colorway released was the OG Black Toe White / Black / Red AJ 1. It’s worth noting that the first few releases of the Air Jordan line all followed a similar color scheme to match the Chicago Bulls colors (the team that Michael Jordan was playing for at the time). As the years passed the target audience for Cheap Air Jordans expanded to the point where just about every team in the NBA has their own colorway.
