In the four decades since the initial deal that cemented Nike in sneaker history, the shoes have maintained their icon status, with new releases of Air Jordans selling out within minutes. The sneakers grew into an entire Jordan brand, with Nike releasing a suite of Air products. While the company aimed to make $3 million in the first three years, Air Jordans exceeded Nike's expectations, making $126 million in the first year alone. "He had worn Adidas in his high school games and he liked it, but we came out, we sold him and ultimately he believed in us. "We really needed a boost and we thought this young basketball player from North Carolina might be able to help us that way, and his name was Michael Jordan," Knight said in a Fox Business interview in 2016. Though Knight was hesitant to see the vision into fruition, Vaccaro convinced him and Rob Strasser, Nike's director of marketing at the time, to take the risk on Jordan - who also needed convincing of his own, as Adidas and Converse were the leading brands at the time. Knight wanted the company to break into the basketball playing ground, and one of his salesmen, Vaccaro, had a vision to make a deal with Jordan, who was just a rookie at the time. The company posted a loss in 1984, and its stocks struggled after going public in 1980. In the early 1980s, Knight's company was in a rut.
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