[Guardian]How Hakeem Olajuwon tried and failed to stop the 90s sneaker killings

The article gave a great explanation on why hakeem was not popular.
It wasn't his skills. Actually big men in general aren't as marketable as guards or forwards. Even yao, nobody has yao shoes.

The young kids want to dunk and shoot 3s not do hook shots and rebound.

 

Yup. A $200 shoe could have horrible sales due to the marketing. Lou isn't right or wrong. Its just a speculative and theory based guess on if it shoe would sell "if we did this"

 

Agreed. I also thought about how Hakeem might not be a popular enough name for kids. I didn't grow up with Hakeem so I didn't know about popularity with the player

 

One of the main reasons I despise Michael Jordan. Dont care what he did for the game, he and Nike can simply change all this but wont. Get that money though Jordan for your debts.

 

Noble idea from a noble person. Dream is great. Wish his concept would've caught on, but there's too much greed in the world.



Hakeem and MJ's shoes share a huge commonality.... the're all ugly

I only like 1 or 2 pairs of Jordans

Spoiler

Spoiler

Removing the visuble air pocket was another horrible idea

 

He's a very unlikeable person off the court. He went after LBJ with snide comments just because he felt his legacy threatened... Even before that kept Isiah Thomas off the first dream team despite Thomas being the best point guard in the world at the time because of some strange ego feud. If his Jordan team sneakers weren't such a great value on sale, I know many wouldn't buy them...

 

I wanted to be maxwell

 

You don't say?

Jordan didn't lift a finger. Nike took care of all of that. And let's be clear, it wasn't the advertising that made Air Jordan's a hit, it was Jordan.

If Nike came out with Air Hakeem's with the same advertising and Etonic did $39 Jordan shoes with limited advertising, guess which one would have more sales and more rev? I mean, you can't separate the player from this - marketing can only do so much.

 

See above.

 

What size are you? I have a pair I've been trying to sell on eBay. Brand new... Well never worn

 

Magnum

 

That's too many what ifs.
Jordan won the dunk contest, that's important to kids

 

i had an old pair, remember it had the 34 on the side. I remember it wore out pretty quick though.

 

when did that other one come out? This is the one I remember.

 

oops i meant this one

 

the goggles, the knee pads... jordan...

not every NBA player gets the top line endorsement.

he did get in a taco bell commercial with shaq riding a tandem bike - that tops them all.

 

Hakeems game was a marketers dream. His accent, humility and nationality was not.

 

Supply and demand hasn't been used for this type of good for many years, discretionary pricing models (which basically ignore the supply side) replaced it a long time back.

 

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/02/27/how-michael-jordan-made-90-million-in-2013/