VIA: If Michael Jordan said he was tired of seeing his namesake on the nightly news over video of brawls at malls across the country, Nike would certainly accommodate him.
You’ve probably forgotten the name Michael Eugene Thomas.
Thomas, a freshman at Maryland’s Meade Senior HS in Maryland in 1989, was found dead in May of that year, strangled by a so-called friend who left Thomas’ barefooted body in the woods after stealing his two-week old Air Jordans.
“We told him not to wear the shoes to school,” Thomas’ grandmother told Sports Illustrated for a 1990 cover story on the growing risk kids faced in wearing Air Jordans and team apparel. “We said somebody might like them, and he said, ‘Granny, before I let anyone take those shoes, they’ll have to kill me.’”
For a $115.50 pair of shoes, Thomas paid a much steeper price.
Fast-forward to the last weeks of 2013 and Air Jordans are still hot sellers. In recent years, Jordan Brand has made a calculated decision to release retro Jordans at the peak of the holiday season, and if you think the videos of crazed shoppers rushing into Wal-Mart and Target on Black Friday are wild, you should check out the videos from the latest Jordan release.
From California to Texas to the Bronx, shoppers punched, kicked and beat their fellow customers to try to get their hands on a pair of $170 Air Jordan XI Gamma Blues.
One video shows a shirtless young man being beaten by another shopper at Weberstown Mall in Stockton, Calif., with screams from other shoppers acting as the soundtrack to the Instagram clip. With the shirtless man on the ground, the other shopper wails on him before fleeing. Another video, outside a Foot Locker in the Bronx, shows two girls fighting outside the store as the crowd cheers.
Thankfully, nobody died for their Jordans last weekend — and the vast majority of people wait in line to buy their kicks without feeling compelled to kick the other shoppers — but last year Joshua Woods, 22, was shot and killed after he bought a pair at a Houston mall.
Jordan has taken hits for the mania his shoes create — and for the working conditions at the factories where his shoes are made — but nothing sticks to the Greatest of All Time, who, according to Forbes, makes roughly $80 million a year with most of that dough coming from Jordan Brand sales.
Still, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t do something about it.
Jordan undoubtedly wields incredible power within Nike, and if he said he was tired of seeing his namesake on the nightly news over video of brawls at malls across the country, the sneaker giant would certainly accommodate him.
So how’s this for a novel idea: Only sell retro Jordans online.
We asked a Jordan Brand rep on Monday if they’ve entertained the idea of changing their sales strategy, and, specifically, if they’ve talked about selling the shoes exclusively over the Internet in an effort to curb the violence that comes with each release.
“Consumer safety is of paramount important to us. We continue to work with our retail partners to share best practices and refine our launch process to improve the buying experience for our consumers. We encourage people wishing to purchase our products to do so in a respectful manner,” the rep said in an email that fell short of answering the initial question (a follow-up was met with a response referring me back to the initial statement, read: get lost).
It seems that until MJ decides to say something, riots and Air Jordan releases are a holiday tradition that’s here to stay.
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