David Rosenthal: commitment

Transcript context

…It is unfathomable. He did active work for many years in order to build the brand equity, but he does passive work now to keep it alive. Of course, he has input on who they're signing to the Jordan brands. He is a vote in that. But in Michael staying out of trouble and Michael staying the dream, he builds a tremendous amount of brand equity. Nike reaps 95% of that, so they're perfectly happy with this arrangement. They're happy to cut him $300 million checks. I would be, too, if I was earning the other side of the $6.6 billion. But Jordan totally has had to shape his life in order to be the dream Michael and continue to be that. He is so synonymous with the brand that he has to be perfect to keep the brand doing what it's doing. Yes, and that's the dark side for Michael. One more really critical thing I want to say about all this, Jordan, the building of the dream, and the changing of culture, before we move on to all the rest of Nike history, which we will cover here. You can't ignore, too, again, the timing in this. All of this coincided with the rise of ESPN and Sports Center. That was so important. In the early days, when Steve Prefontaine was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, or some of the tennis players, there was a Nike line of, oh, we could spend X million dollars in advertising, but if we get our shoes on the cover of Sports Illustrated, that's worth $20 million. With ESPN and Sports Center, those athletes and Michael Jordan being all over that 24/7 every night, that was $20 million a night of free advertising. That's a great point. Off the back of the rise of the Jordan brand, in 1988, they launched the Just Do It campaign. I think this is the first Wieden+Kenndy ad, right?…

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