KEY POINTS

  • Nike released retro Air Jordan 5 moments before the airing of Michael Jordan's "The Last Dance"
  • Air Jordan 5 went sold out just before the opening credits of The Last Dance's first episode
  • Jordan revealed the game-winning shot that changed his life prior to airing of The Last Dance

The recently released retro Air Jordan 5 “Fire Red” reportedly went sold out moments before the airing of Michael Jordan’s “The Last Dance” docuseries on ESPN.

For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic, sports fans around the world finally got something to watch that was sports related in the form of ESPN’s “The Last Dance,” a 10-part documentary, which chronicled Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls.

On Sunday (April 19), ESPN aired the first two episodes of the talked-about Jordan docuseries. But just before its TV debut, Nike made sneakerheads lose their mind by releasing a pair of retro Air Jordan sneakers.

Nike dropped the Air Jordan 5 in the “Fire Red” colorway, which are reportedly retailed at $200 as part of celebrating its 30th anniversary this year . What happened next was something beyond the expected as the marketing campaign didn’t last very long. According to Chicago Tribune editor and Bulls insider DeAntae Prince, the Air Jordan 5 went sold out just a few moments before “The Last Dance,s” opening credits.

Prior to the nationwide airing of the said docuseries, i t already became one of the most followed sports news stories. It premiered on Sunday with Episodes 1 and 2 and to everybody’s surprise, the ratings showed that fans really tuned in to watch it.

John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reported that Episode 1 averaged a staggering 6.3 million viewers while Episode 2 also became an ESPN hit with 5.8 million viewers.

Phil Rosenthal of Chicago Tribune also reported that “the vast majority of the Chicago homes watching “Last Dance,” did so on ESPN (household ratings of 11.2 and 10.4) rather than the sanitized ESPN2 presentation (1.4 and 1.3).”

The ten-part series was originally scheduled to air during the NBA Finals in June but was pushed up two months to fill the void in the sports calendar created by the coronavirus global crisis. Evidently, it turned out to be a fairly great idea.

9. Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan is so good at so many things that some of his strengths have been overshadowed.One of them is his raw power.Early in his career, he used it to dunk on all kinds of players. For such a skinny guy, the power he dished out was incredible.In mid career, Jordan’s power as a dunker peaked and he physically dominated and dunked on guards who were simply too weak and small.It was only later in his career that he developed and came to rely on his patented turnaround jumper. Reuters

Jordan has reportedly been worried about the possible impact of “The Last Dance” on his fans. Apparently, the docuseries contain a number of revelations about the greatest player of all time. In a recent talk with ESPN’s “Get Up,” Jordan made an early revelation by recalling the game-winning shot that changed his life. According to MJ, he was simply known in NCAA as “Mike Jordan” and it was the game-winning shot he drained during the 1982 NCAA Finals that made him “Michael Jordan.”

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