Meet Sonny Vaccaro, the executive credited with signing Michael Jordan in Ben Affleck's new movie 'Air' and the self-proclaimed 'savior of Nike'
Vaccaro grew up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended Youngstown State University on a football scholarship. No one in his family went to college, Vaccaro said in an interview over a pancake breakfast in 2021.
In 1977, Vaccaro tapped a connection from his work promoting basketball and got an introduction to Nike and cofounder Phil Knight. But they were interested in Vaccaro's basketball tournament. Nike subsequently hired Vaccaro and tapped him to expand its basketball and collegiate businesses, a chapter of his career that's covered in the
Nike's Jordan business did $5.1 billion in sales in its most recent fiscal year. Retro releases of the sneakers Jordan wore during his playing career still sell out in seconds., despite"Air's" version of events, in which Vaccaro is the heroic central figure.
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