When it comes to sneaker media, hashtags are important, but they’re decreasing in their overall importance as time goes on. The reason I say that is because hashtags used to be a way for you to discover content through the hashtag, but a lot of these social platforms have refocused their own search efforts and made their own search functions on the platform a lot easier to use. As a result, hashtags are less important nowadays, although they are still useful and important in the sense that you do want to follow hashtags that you’re really interested in.

For instance, “what did you wear today”, or WDYWT, has always been a legendary hashtag, even before hashtags were popular, back on sneakers forums like Nike Talk or ISS. These WDYWT posts were always huge because they literally showed you what people were wearing on that day, so that hashtag is always a good one to follow.

Otherwise, things like Sneaker Head, Nike, Adidas, etc. are important to follow if they align with what you’re looking for. Beyond the hashtags, I would suggest just curating and cultivating your timeline so that you have the people and the content that you want to see visible immediately when you open the app, rather than having to dig through hashtags. Even though you can follow hashtags on Instagram, that’s just like following a person, so you want to make sure that you’re curating and cultivating your timeline to have the content that you’re looking for in the first place.

One of the things that people overlook in the whole media landscape is SEO, or search engine optimization. Basically, while I want to create content that the reader can understand easily, I also need to create content that a search engine can understand easily and bring more people to my site. This is kind of a good indicator of how varied your skillset needs to be in this game.

You can’t just be a writer. You can’t just be a photographer. You need to know a little bit about everything. You need to know where to put the keywords. You need to know about what people are actually searching for. You need to know how to write about the shoe. You need to know about the shoes that are coming out and the fact that they’re valuable in terms of traffic and just sitting there waiting for you to make content around them. Overall, there are a lot of things that you need to pay attention to if you want to be successful in sneaker media.

Ultimately, it kind of comes down to the numbers and realizing what your audience actually cares about. We have to think about it on a daily basis. There are certain shoes that I know I care about way more than the people who read our site or the people who follow our brands care about them. In these cases, I kind of have to look at it and ask myself, “are we talking about this shoe too much?” We have to ask ourselves if people in our demographic actually care about it or if it’s just me. This is because ultimately, it needs to be more about what the audience is interested in than what I’m interested in.

Have you considered exploring an online sneaker education? If not, it’s worth thinking about, as it allows you to gain all of the benefits of a good sneaker education without needing anything more than an internet connection and an interest in learning.

Like everything else in the world, the price of sneakers has consistently gone up over the years. This is due to inflation, but even more so, due to market demands. For example, when the original Air Jordan 1 came out, it cost $65. Nowadays, you are paying around $160 for the same sneaker. That’s almost a $100 price increase that happened over the past 30-plus years for that one shoe.

Sneakers Are Used as a Status Symbol

The price of sneakers used to be viewed as more of a status symbol. The New Balance 990 was the first sneaker on the market to cost over $100, so if you saw people wearing them, you knew they had money. Many drug dealers, specifically in the Philadelphia and Washington DC areas, wanted those sneakers to display their status.

The same thing happened with the Nike Air Foamposite One. They became a status symbol because of their price. They were about $180 when they first came out in the 90s, and they quickly became the known shoe of hustlers. Status is how sneakers and the sneaker culture were given life and why sneakers are more expensive now than ever. Today, there are New Balance sneakers that cost close to $400 and certain Air Jordans that are over $300 a pair.

The price increase of sneakers is also causing the resale market on shoes to go up. It’s not just about the initial price of the sneakers, it’s also about the demand. A pair of Yeezys that retail for $220 can resell for over $1,000. Most people that I know aren’t going to go out and buy a pair of $1,000 shoes, so the cost is almost fictional at this point.

Most ordinary people aren’t paying the $1,000 price tag on resale shoes, but celebrities and rappers are. They buy them outright with cash, or they make trades. They are taking four or five pairs of shoes that they own and trading them all in for one new pair. This is what’s driving the economy on sneakers up. Of course, people are looking to cash in and make as much money as possible on the secondary market, so I don’t see this ending any time soon.

Sneaker Education on the Stages of the Sneaker Economy

There are different stages of the sneaker economy. First, there is wholesale, which is the sneakers’ manufactured price and the cost retail establishments pay to procure the sneakers. Next, there is retail. Retailers are where consumers would buy the sneakers. The retailers can charge whatever cost they want; however, there is a suggested price created by the manufacturer called the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price.) This price is just a suggestion and does not have to be used by the retailer. Finally, you have the resale economy. In this day and age, sneakers are the most popular on the resale market. This is where a new kind of retailer comes into play, called consignment shops. Consignment shops can include physical stores and also sites like eBay and Amazon.

Resale Market of Sneakers

Consignment shops thrive purely on the resale market because the value is based on popularity and demand versus supply. For example, let’s say a popular sneaker hits retail stores, and only 2,000 were made, but more than 2,000 consumers want them. When these sneakers enter the resale market, they become more valuable due to their rarity and exclusivity. As a result, the value from their box price is going to skyrocket.

If you are going to resell your sneakers, then be prepared to pay out some of the profit because everyone wants a cut. If you are reselling shoes with a consignment shop, they will take 20% of what you make on them. If you are reselling them online using an e-commerce site, which allows you to sell anything, then be prepared to pay sellers fees and such.

Now you have companies that are starting to index the resale value of sneakers that are historically released over time. It’s almost as if we are treating future models of sneakers like current commodities. When you have companies tracking the resale value of sneakers in real-time, it speaks to how the resale sneaker market has come to be worth over one billion dollars.

This sneaker resale market is crazy because, to be quite honest, many of these sneakers are widely available. Some consumers just assume that specific sneakers are going to be hard to get, and it’s this way of thinking that drives the value of the sneakers up. It’s similar to the speculation that goes along with the stock market.

“Nice Kicks” was, in a way, the Forefathers of the Blog era when it came to sneakers. You know, the blog was the “who, what, where, when, and why” of athletic shoes. Then, when that blog caught on, a lot of other companies were developing blogs. They were predecessors of, “Sneaker News” and “Hypebeast” and, of course, “Complex.” These sites were the original group to kick off the popularity of shoe blogs and online sneaker education.

I remember “Nice Kicks” and “The Shoe Game.” “Sneaker Files” was another of the early ones. These were the first pillars of popular shoe media and sneaker education. However, you’ll remember that I was saying that those blogs didn’t get invited to press trips and press unveilings back in the day. Now, they’re on the priority list for brands.

“Bobbito’s Confessions of a Sneaker Addict” was essentially the first recorded piece of sneaker media. I actually remember talking to Bobbito about this, and I remember him telling me that before his blog, the only way that you could see athletic shoes in the media were during basketball games. He would say that viewers would hope that a player got injured so the camera would shoot a close-up on their feet so they could see what shoes athletes were wearing in the NBA.

That was the first time you saw someone write passionately and knowledgeably about the subject of sneakers, and it was in a legitimate magazine. I think that was really the genesis of all of athletic shoe media. Then, from there, Bobbito went on to write the first book about the sneaker industry, “Where’d You Get Those,” which is, I think, over a decade old now.

That’s the beginning of the print age, and then, SLAM launched “Kicks” magazine, started by Russ Bengtson, and that was the first real magazine dedicated to this type of shoe. That was an offshoot of SLAM.

Then, you have the internet age that came in. Sneaker blogs really started first with forums and message boards like “Nike Talk” and “ISS,” which eventually turned into “Sole Collector.” These forms were kind of like hives of sneakerheads where these people would post leaks or things that blogs pretty much cover now. The difference between forums and message boards was that you could have actual interaction with other people in the community, where opening up a print magazine, you really couldn’t have that.

Now, it’s kind of evolved to web blogging. Those forms and those message boards turned and evolved into actual publications with branding. The heads of these sites could curate the news and things that were covered and then still have a lively comment section where there’s a community of sneakerheads interacting with the content and interacting with each other.

Fast forward to the mid to late 2000s, that era turned into social media and online blogs. Then, even shorter, easier versions of blogging, basically, where everything was in 140 characters or less. Everything could just be as simple as an image with a caption. Through that, you start to see the arc of where sneakers on the internet and how people who are consuming this content grew. None of that would have been possible without “Bobbito’s Confessions of a Sneaker Addict.” That was really the start of everything.

On-court sneaker coverage in the NBA has definitely changed. In the ’90s with Michael Jordan, you had to wait and watch the game and see what they were wearing on TV and kind of squint and try to match what you saw in the sneaker store to what they were wearing on their feet. Now, we have 4K cameras and HD TVs. You can see every detail, and there are a lot more choices in terms of on-court basketball sneakers than there used to be.

There used to be four colors of Air Jordans every year. Now, there are eight colors of Air Jordans that come out a month. Now, there are websites and blogs that are just dedicated to what NBA players are wearing on court. I think it’s changed along with how technology and the internet has evolved. It’s just made everything a lot more accessible.

Building the business of sneaker media is a topic discussed in the sneaker education course.

This history of sneakers in film and videos really dates back to Spike Lee movies like “Do the Right Thing,” and “She’s Gotta Have It.” Lee helped bring sneaker culture to the forefront of film. There is one iconic scene in the movie “Do The Right Thing” where the character, Buggin Out, is wearing a pair of Air Jordan 4s. During this scene, his sneakers are run over by a passing bicyclist. This moment in the movie is, still to this day, one of the most powerful sneaker scenes in film history.

The famous movie scene not only displayed the Air Jordan 4 sneaker on the big screen, but it also exposed the idea of someone getting angry about their shoe getting scuffed. Afterward, Buggin went home and tried scrubbing out the scuff with a toothbrush. This is a very real feeling that all sneakerheads have felt. Spike Lee was able to bring this emotion to film because it was something he experienced himself.

This exposure led to Spike Lee, Nike, and Jordan forming a longer relationship. They worked together to develop stylized shoe commercials that resembled films. Their partnership was a starting point for sneakers in film and pop culture. After that, sneakers played a significant role in movies like “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Blue Chips,” and “Like Mike.”

If it weren’t for Spike Lee and his movie “Do The Right Thing,” we wouldn’t have the sneaker video content that we have today. Sneakers used to play more of a complementary role to performance, but nowadays, sneakers have become more of a main attraction. There is sneaker video content all over the web, on YouTube, and on Instagram.

Sneaker Industry

Sneakers have always been a big part of sports like basketball. However, these sneakers cater to a specific audience of people already predisposed to them. For example, any basketball fan that saw Michael Jordan wearing Air Jordans already knew about them, even if it was just peripherally.

In “Back to the Future,” Michael J Fox wore a pair of futuristic-looking Nike Macs that were almost the costar of the film. The shoes, and that particular part of the film, were both created by famous Nike designer Tinker Hatfield. This unique project was an excellent opportunity for a man who is creative on many levels to flex in an entirely different lane.

A Shift in Sneaker Culture

This shift in sneaker culture created an area in film and video where people would notice sneakers that they usually wouldn’t. Sneakers are often viewed as just a necessity. Just something that people have to buy their kids every year that often comes with a surprising price tag. But when you see something amazing like the Nike Mac in the movie “Back to the Future,” it raises awareness. Those shoes become so much more than just another piece of a school uniform.

Great Scott!

Sneakers like this have a cultural context to them. They represent this importance to another generation that people may not recognize. The futuristic sneakers designed for the movie “Back to the Future” became the future of shoes in reality when Nike created and sold the light-up, self-lacing shoes based on the film.

The cross-over commercial for Nike’s new Back to the Future-inspired sneakers launched in 2011. In the commercial, the shoe store employee shows the futuristic sneakers to the athlete customer. He’s talking about how the shoes light up when Doc shows up and asks if the sneakers are self-lacing. The employee tells him that they will be adding that feature in 2015.

Sneakers in Television

Popular television series like “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Seinfeld: were iconic sitcoms, but they were so much more to sneakerheads. A true sneakerhead will never forget Will Smith, standing in the empty living room wearing his all-white Jordan 11s in the last episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” or the episode of Jerry Seinfeld when he put his feet up on the coffee table, revealing his Air Jordan 7s.

These were all vital moments in the sneaker culture, and they happened before the internet was a big thing. Now websites like Complex make lists of the best sneakers aired on hit TV shows, and sneaker brands tell stories around these pop culture moments.

“A lot of people get copyright and trademarks mixed up,” says sneaker industry professional Kenneth Anand. What is a copyright? A copyright protects an original work of authorship. “Original works of authorship” can include, but are not limited to, architecture, graphics, pictures, sculptures, works of literature, or other types of artistic work.

Examples of Copyrights

Jay-Z would have a copyright on the lyrics that he writes for his songs. He would also have a copyright on the songs themselves, as they are fixed in MP3 or CD format. Artist Daniel Arcam would have a copyright over his paintings, unique Pokemon, and eroded DeLorean sculptures.

Writer George R. R. Martin would have a copyright over his books for “Game of Thrones” and the screenplay for the HBO TV series “Game of Thrones.” These are various examples of the types of copyrights that you can have.

Benefits of Copyrights

“One of the main goals of copyrights is to allow the inventor the ability to reap the benefits of creating the work,” Kenneth Anand explains. This means that whoever owns a copyright has the exclusive right to reproduce, publish, promote, and sell their works of art. In order to obtain a copyright, the work must be fixed in a tangible form. You cannot get a copyright for just an idea.

Obtaining a Copyright

In order to obtain a copyright, your work must follow three basic requirements. First, the work must be original, meaning it must be independently created rather than a copy of something else already existing. Second, it must be creative, meaning that there must be some minimum basis of creativity for the work. Finally, it has to be fixed. Copyrights cannot be ideas or things made up out of your imagination. Instead, they must be fixed in some tangible form. If a work has all three of these elements – original, creative, and fixed – you can obtain a copyright for it.

What types of works can you copyright? As said before, a copyright protects works of authorship, such as songs, books, videos, and other similar creations. You can even get a copyright for fabric patterns, jewelry designs, software, and architectural designs.

Copyrights in the Sneaker Industry

What do copyrights mean for sneakers? Are copyrights even applicable to sneakers? Typically, under US law, you cannot get a copyright for things that are useful articles, like hoodies, shoes, and/or pairs of pants. These are useful articles that are not copyrightable because they are not considered creative, unique, or original. However, there are some ways copyrights can be applied to sneakers.

Many sneaker companies are now turning to copyright law to protect their designs. How? First of all, designs on the side of a sneaker can only be copyrighted if they are separate and distinct from the useful article (the shoe) itself. Kenneth Anand’s former colleagues at adidas, for example, obtained a copyright application and protection for the design of the Yeezy 350 Boost.

“Well, they applied to the copyright review board. And they originally denied their application, because the copyright board said that the designs on the side of the Yeezy were not original, and were not separate from the useful article itself,” recalls Anand. “They were not satisfied with this so they appealed. And ultimately they were able to obtain a copyright application for the design of the 350 Boost, which is the stripe pattern that everybody knows and loves of the 350.”

It took many years and a lot of legal fighting, but Kenneth Anand’s colleagues managed to obtain a copyright. Today, more and more sneaker companies are turning to copyright applications for a cheap and easy way to protect the designs on the side of their sneakers, as long as the designs qualify as copyrightable works.

While sneaker companies are turning to copyright law to protect the patterns and designs on the side of their shoes, copyright law is traditionally used in the sneaker industry in many other ways. “For example, you can copyright your website, photos, or other promotional materials that you create, in relation to the sneakers themselves,” Kenneth Anand continues. “So copyright is useful in many ways to protect a sneakers brand and all of the collateral that goes around building that brand.”

An important thing to note about copyrights is that you must ensure your designs do not infringe on other people’s works. If you do not, you could find yourself in a lawsuit that could take years to resolve and can be quite costly.

Final Thoughts

Sneaker education expert Kenneth Anand highly recommends that you make sure anything that you are creating is original, creative, and fixed in a tangible form. If you meet those three requirements, you will be on your way to obtaining a copyright and protecting your own intellectual property.

Before there were websites and social media channels dedicated to sneakers, you didn’t really see a lot of sneakers in the media. This made it harder to connect with them. Most of the sneaker ads that aired were celebrity-based, linking them to specific releases.

I remember seeing videos of certain shoes like the banned Air Jordan 1. When these sneakers were first released to the public, they were only carried by outlet stores. So naturally, this made them super coveted. Today, those same shoes could sell for thousands of dollars.

Sneaker Industry Chaos

There was this one sneaker video of an outlet store with a large drawn gate in front of it. It was early in the morning, and people were waiting outside of the gate to enter. No official line was formed yet because they had to wait for the gate to open before moving into the plaza area in front of the store. Eventually, security came and opened the gate. As soon as there was a gap underneath the gate, people were on the ground crawling under it.

So as this gate lifted, the crowd emerged from it, and people start sprinting to get to the storefront. They were running as fast as possible to get there and form an official line. This happens every time there is a massive Jordan sneaker release.

The new sneaker releases were always accompanied by these funny local television coverage pieces done by people who don’t actually know what’s going on. So they would fumble around, trying to figure it out as they went, and it rarely made sense.

Let me tell you a little bit about why these shoes are important to you. You see, they have the icy gum bottoms. Just lick them. They are limited editions. These shoes are never coming again.

I remember when the Galaxy Foams were released in Orlando in 2012. There were news teams covering the event with helicopters overhead and cops at the mall, shutting things down. It was pure chaos.

There have been a lot of fights at New York City sneaker stores that have gone viral. With so many people pushing and shoving each other over shoes, eventually, the cops are going to get involved, and the whole event will get shut down. In New York City, Supreme can’t release their Nike collaborations in the store anymore because of moments like these.

Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Meme culture has also contributed to big pop culture sneaker crossover moments. We all remember the Damn Daniel thing with the white vans sneakers.

Damn, Daniel. Damn, Daniel. Damn, Daniel. Back at it again with the white Vans.

The “Damn, Daniel” kid eventually became so popular that he received a free supply of Vans for life. It’s interesting to see how these top-name brands react to these moments. There is a lot of free marketing, and they have to figure out how to best take advantage of it. I remember when all of this was happening, and I emailed Vans to ask if they were doing something about this. They responded that they had a plan. Some people speculate that Vans planned this, themselves, as a marketing strategy. I don’t believe that, but some people do.

For the record, I cannot stand the term “sneakerhead” because I feel like it defines someone as only being into sneakers. In addition, the term tends to draw direct associations to negative terms like crackheads. I prefer to use words like sneaker aficionado or sneaker lover instead of sneakerhead. Although I love sneakers, I have never been addicted to them. I have never put sneakers above and beyond everything else.

The term “sneakerhead” has been adopted by large companies and the mainstream media. It’s also often used by people who aren’t super passionate about sneakers to describe others who are. It’s an easy phrase to describe someone that is really into sneakers.

Sneakers Bring People Together

Sharing a love for sneakers is a great way to create a bond between people, but it’s not the only thing that matters. There are many other aspects outside of sneakers that draw people together. The sneakers may be the initial common bond that can put people in a room together, but their conversations and other interests keep the bonds alive.

The term “sneakerhead” is fitting as a quick and easy definition of someone that loves shoes, but it does not explain the full meaning of the word. It’s not an accurate description of what really takes place among the people in the sneaker community. There’s also camaraderie, friendship, and kinship. There are stories being exchanged between sneaker lovers of all kinds. There’s an entire culture.

I have sneakers in my closet from countries all over the world. These are from countries I’ve never even visited. They were sent to me by friends that live there. Friends that I made while they were visiting the States. We bonded over our love of sneakers. This is an example of the global phenomenon and kinship that the word sneakerhead doesn’t fully encompass.

Sneaker Industry

There are so many different ways to describe what a sneakerhead is. I can think of at least three or four versions.

First, there are the Hypebeast Sneakerheads. These are the sneaker lovers that are out to buy the latest in everything. And they are buying these things because of the hype or the influences. Many of the influences come from musical artists. They are buying the next Yeezys because Kanye is wearing them or Pumas because Pharell is wearing them. They choose the sneakers they buy based on association, not on the design of the shoe.

Then you have the OG sneakerheads. These are the true shoe-collecting sneakerheads. They are the people buying the Stan Smiths, the never-worn first-edition Air Jordans, and the ripped-up 80s Jordans used for playing pickup basketball back in the day. These are the sneakerheads that appreciate the history of the brands like Pony. They want to be a part of that big-city culture in places like New York or LA.

Next, there are sneakerheads like me. I’m more interested in the design aspect of sneakers. This is partly because I am a designer myself. There are different aspects and elements that go into the design of a sneaker. I want to know how they can evolve, I want to know how to keep them relevant, and I want to know how to put new technology into them.

Finally, you have the new-age sneakerheads. These are the people that initiate the influences that shoes have on buyers. These are the kids that basically create the trends for everything. They are essentially hypebeasts without even realizing it.

Sneaker Culture

Ultimately, I think that a sneakerhead is just someone who really cares about footwear. They care about all things related to sneakers. They like the stories, the history, and the scene.
They want to know what’s happening and where it’s going.

I’m still not a huge fan of the word sneakerhead because it’s been so diluted by companies and people looking to make money off the term. It’s an easy shortcut to explain to people what you are into, but I don’t personally like to define myself that way. Sneakerhead typically refers to people who care about the stuff and want to spend their free time dedicated to it.

I work in sneakers, and I can’t really ever turn that off. On the weekends, I’m still thinking about sneakers or reading about sneakers. I’m still texting my friends about what sneakers are coming out, sneaker reviews, or how specific brands are being presented. So basically, being a sneakerhead is just this idea that’s always in the back of your head, and it frames the way you look at the world.

After learning about trademark law, copyright law, and patent law, another important part of sneaker education is learning about trade secrets. So what is a trade secret and how is it protected?

A trade secret is a business method, customer list, pattern, idea, or some other non-public piece of information that a company will go through great lengths to protect. Trade secrets are important because companies work tirelessly to develop independent ways of doing business and to create a special product or a process, and they need to protect these items. The information is used in business to create an opportunity to obtain an economic advantage over competitors that don’t have that information. A really famous example of a trade secret is the secret ingredients in Coca-Cola’s recipe.

How Do Trade Secrets Apply to the Sneaker Industry?

Companies like sneaker companies go to great lengths to protect their trade secrets. In 2014, trade secrets were a topic at the highest level when three former employees left Nike to join Adidas. These gentlemen left and allegedly took with them information relating to various aspects of the Nike brand, including their processes of making sneakers and other confidential information about marketing, promotion, and many things that we discuss in our book about the business side.

As soon as these three gentlemen announced that they were leaving Nike to join Adidas, Nike filed a lawsuit. In it, they alleged that these gentlemen were taking specific confidential information, otherwise known as trade secrets, and using it for their benefit and for the benefit of Adidas. In its complaint, Nike asked for damages of over $10 million, claiming that this information was extremely sensitive and highly valuable to their brand. The case ended up settling out of court. But eventually, these gentlemen made their way over to Adidas, soo it was worked out. But it just goes to show you the extreme lengths and costs that companies will go through to protect their trade secret information.

Because trade secrets are so sensitive, it’s hard to know which companies have what information. But companies spend a lot of money on research and development to create trade secrets and to gain an economic advantage over their competitors.

How Does a Company Protect Its Trade Secrets?

One method that companies use to protect their information is by having employees that come into the company sign NDAs. NDAs are “non-disclosure agreements,” and they protect exactly what trade secrets are, confidential information such as data, customer lists, processes, patterns, and other sensitive and highly valuable information. NDAs are useful. But they don’t always work because many employees leave, and they go and use the information elsewhere. Sometimes, it’s hard to prove that an employee has breached an NDA. So they’re used to create a chilling effect to make sure that employees know that there will be a liability if they disclose the information that they obtained through their relationship with the employer.

Another way that companies can protect their trade secrets is through restrictive covenants in their employment agreements. We’re not going to get into much detail on restrictive covenants in this module. But when an employee joins a company, the company will sometimes ask an employee to waive certain rights and to abide by certain restrictive covenants. So if an employee comes to a company and then leaves, they may be asked, for a certain period of time, to not work for a competitor, to not disclose confidential information about the company, and to not solicit other employees that have worked for the company. These are what are called restrictive covenants. They’re methods and tools that companies use to protect their trade secrets through employment agreements.

Another way that companies can protect their trade secrets is by filing a lawsuit. This is, obviously, the most final and nuclear option in the trade secret protection ladder, but this is sometimes the last and best option when sensitive trade secrets are at stake. A company can bring a lawsuit against an employee or another corporation that it believes has stolen their trade secrets, and through litigation, they can try to work out protecting that information, stopping the dissemination of the confidential information, and, in some cases, returning the confidential information and trade secrets back to the company.

Now that we’ve covered trade secrets, we’ve really gone through all of the main facets of intellectual property law. We’ve covered trademarks, copyrights, patents, and trade secrets. After learning these basics of intellectual property, we can then move on to our next section, which is the law of sneakers and the more practical side of the business, which we call “The Art Of The Sneaker Deal.”

When you speak about the merge between sneakers and sports, there’s no greater influence than Michael Jordan. One of the most compelling issues revolving around Michael Jordan and sneakers was when the NBA banned his sneakers for having too much black on them in 1985. This was a story that really tapped into the heartstrings of urban sneaker consumers.

Questions were asked about the issues of the sneakers. What was wrong with the coloring of the sneakers? What rules were being violated by having a lot of black on the sneaker? The unbelievable answer was that there wasn’t any white on them.

The Racial Tensions Were High in New York for the Sneaker Industry

Now you have the perfect storm of events with a whole lot of tension behind a whole lot of racial situations. You have this symbolism of the best player in the NBA, at the time, being told that his shoes had too much black on them and that he would be fined if he continued to wear them. The emotion in this controversial issue created a great marketing story for sneaker consumers.

On September 15th, Nike created a revolutionary new basketball shoe. On October 18th, the NBA threw the shoes out of the game. Fortunately, the NBA can’t stop you from wearing Nike’s Air Jordans.

Michael Jordan Was the Greatest Influence on Sneakers in Sports

At the time and up until Michael Jordan ended his career of being the best basketball player in the world, a new-wave phenomenon of sneakers became insanely popular. So here you have, arguably, the most important athlete of all times. He did everything. From an athletic standpoint, there is still no better player in the game of basketball. Everyone wanted to be like Mike on the basketball court. But in his younger days, Mike was also very fashionable. He wore Nike sweatsuits and rocked gold chains.

Michael Jordan helped transcend sneakers, the sneaker culture, and sneakers as a fashion object. The sneakers were so beautiful that people wanted to wear them off the basketball court and into the streets. People were wearing Jordans a hell of a lot more in the streets than they were on the basketball court. So Michael Jordan was everything when it came to sneakers.

Michael Jordan hasn’t played a professional game of basketball in decades now, but Air Jordans are still the number one talked about sneakers. They are still the number one sneakers that people line up and camp outside for. Jordans aren’t really used for basketball anymore. They rarely were back in the day, but they are even less now. Jordans have become more of a fashion product these days.

Sneaker Culture Fueled by Celebrities on Social Media

Celebrities are a significant influence in the sneaker culture. You see a lot of the sneakers they are wearing, especially on their personal social media accounts. For example, you see Lebron James taking lots of photos of his shoes and posting them on his Instagram Stories. He posts a lot of pictures of his shoes, and you notice that he has better sneakers than everyone else does. It’s a place for him to show off his sneakers, but it’s also his cosign, and this marketing tactic works. Kids are going to see his posts and want his sneakers.

Nowadays, athletes who play sports aren’t as influential in footwear as they used to be. However, we are in a place now where people are more interested in what the athletes are wearing before the game than what they are wearing on the court. If Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook wear a pair of Virgil Abloh Air Jordan 1s before the game, then that’s what everyone is going to notice. Fans and consumers may not be buying as many signature on-court sneakers anymore, but it’s those off-court moments that express their true personalities.

Every celebrity on social media these days feels like a sneakerhead. Sneakers make people feel good, whether they are rich or not. When you have new shoes, and that new shoe feeling, you kind of want to show them off to the world.