Superstars all wore Adidas or Converse (who controlled 85% of the basketball shoe market).
Then Adidas made a crucial $19 BILLION mistake that gave Nike the basketball crown.
Here's the full story:
The 1970s belonged to Adidas & Converse.
Every major star wore one of the two:
• Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Julius Erving all wore Converse
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had Adidas' first signature shoe
• Bill Walton dominated in Adidas' Top Ten High
Nike?
Just a track shoe company from Oregon with $867M in sales.
And by 1984, Nike had just reported their first quarterly loss.
That's when their head of marketing, Rob Strasser, got a call about a rookie who'd just been drafted 3rd by the Chicago Bulls...