5:30 p.m. ET
Kelly Cohen ESPN
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the Oscar winners behind Good Will Hunting, are collaborating on a film about Nike’s efforts to land Michael Jordan in a sneaker deal, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Former Nike exec Sonny Vaccaro, who starred in ESPN 30 for 30 “Sole Man” in 2015, and Nike co-founder Phil Knight will star in the film.
Damon will reportedly play Vaccaro and Affleck Knight. Affleck and Damon won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting, and the two collaborated on and starred in the screenplay for 2021’s The Last Duel. Affleck, who will direct the film, also won an Academy Award for Best Picture as the producer for “Argo.”
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The film will focus on Nike’s efforts to sign Jordan in 1984 when Jordan entered the NBA. Jordan hails from North Carolina and was the No. 3 pick overall in the 1984 NBA draft, and Vaccaro managed to do the impossible for a then-minor footwear company and keep Jordan away from Adidas, Reebok and Converse. In this way, Vaccaro helped transform Nike, the relationship between an athlete and a brand, and the sneaker industry as a whole.
The 10-part Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance is available on the ESPN app.
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“Although I never imagined wearing the (Nike) shoe, the creativity it offered me and the education it gave me – what I wear on my feet and how it improves my athletic ability – I am pleased with the election,” Jordan said in 2004.
In 2021, Yahoo! Finance reported that Jordan Brand, an offshoot of Nike, had sales of $5 billion, and in 2020 Forbes estimated that Nike has paid Jordan an estimated $1.3 billion since 1984.
Affleck and Damon come into play in the creation of all of this.
Vaccaro, who is now 82, helped make the sneaker industry what it is today by signing players like Jordan and Kobe Bryant to multi-million dollar shoe deals with Nike.
“I don’t think people understood how my career developed. I wanted the public to know how sneaker marketing started. For better or worse, I am,” Vaccaro told ESPN in 2015 about Sole Man. I don’t think people understood how my relationships with coaches developed and how I came into contact with Nike. That’s what happened to Jordan, that’s what happened to Kobe.”
“Sole Man” was co-directed by Skydance Sports President Jon Weinbach. Weinbach also served as a producer on the Emmy-winning ESPN series The Last Dance, which he co-produced with Mandalay Pictures Chairman Peter Guber, who will produce the upcoming film. Now they will reunite for another part of the Jordan story.