Mj's Old Shoes Smell Sweet

In the last few weeks, millions of kids in the U.S. went back to school. A mere 50,000 of those kids were cool. They were wearing the sneaker of the moment, the Retro Air Jordan VI. Chances are, right about now, somewhere in suburbs of Toledo, youths are racing from mall to mall, trying to find the VI. Sorry, fellas, it's not going to happen. The city kids beat you to it—again—having bought up every Retro VI, at $120 per pair. Along the way they proved that Michael Jordan, though finished playing, is not done selling sneakers.

Every year Nike trots out a new Air Jordan, the latest edition signified grandly with a Roman numeral. (The 2000 model's is XV.) The launching of an Air Jordan was once akin to offering tickets to a rock concert, with teenagers in sleeping bags waiting for their neighborhood Foot Locker to open up. But for five years now, the release of the new Air Jordan has not generated much frenzy. That fact sent the Nike marketeers back to their ThinkPads.

Since 1995, and with more urgency since June 1998, when Jordan played his final game, Nike has also been selling old—Retro—Air Jordans, making the models in quantities guaranteed not to meet demand. One retailer estimates that by next year 20% of Nike's $3 billion annual sneaker sales will be in Retro products. The original VI appeared in 1991, and His Airness wore a modified version as a member of the first Dream Team, at the 1992 Olympics.

Nike did well with the Retro I, III and V, but the VI, according to a half-dozen shoe-store managers, has been the best Retro performer yet. Nike spokesperson Cheryl McCants guesses that the Retro VI took off because of lingering happy memories of the original Dream Team in this, an Olympic year. She also notes that two current U.S. Olympic basketball players, Vin Baker and Ray Allen, are wearing the Retro VI and bringing attention to it.

The kids will tell you otherwise. "I don't think anybody buying the shoe knows anything about Michael wearing the original VI at any Olympics," says Mike Skyers, 17, of New York City. "What they know is that those shoes were on Michael's feet, period. And that they're red and black, the hot colors. They go with everything."

Skyers, a 6'6" senior forward on the Martin Luther King High basketball team, is an important voice in the basketball shoe industry. He's an after-school salesman at Dr. Jays, a monster sneaker shop on 125th Street in Harlem, and nobody in the store sells basketball shoes better than Skyers. He knew something was up with the Retro VI as kids clamored for it after 28 pairs came off the delivery truck on Sept. 1. "I didn't have to do any selling," he says. Instead, he did some buying, getting a pair for himself. "The word was already out."

That was the first day the sneaker was sold anywhere in the U.S. Six days later the shoe went on sale at the Footaction USA store at the Eastland Mall in Detroit. That store was "allocated" 85 pairs, all of which were gone 45 minutes after the opening bell. "People didn't care what size they were buying," says an assistant manager, Eric Grose. "They were buying 'em and trading 'em, selling 'em in the store at a markup."

By then the September issue of The Source was out, and in the "Sole Food" column the VI got a ringing endorsement from Big Tigger, host of Rap City on BET. The Source, Slam, Spin—those publications can make or break a rubber-soled shoe. "It's patent leather," Mike Salman, style editor of The Source, says of the VI. "It's very fashion-forward."

Footwear analyst Steve Richter has a picture of the Retro VI on his desk at Tucker Anthony, a Boston investment bank. "The day of every big basketball player having his own shoe is over," Richter says. In the athletic footwear industry they say the day of the hero shoe is done. "Kids are more individualistic now," continues Richter. "They are not influenced as much by team icons. They don't wear basketball shoes with the cargo pants they're wearing now. But Michael Jordan is a standout. He can still sell."

At Dr. Jays they're waiting for the next next thing. "Nobody saw Jordan play in the XVs," says Frank Imbrah, an assistant manager. "They know he played in the VIs. That's what people want. I asked my boss, 'When are we going to get more of the Retro VI shoes?' He said, 'Never.' "