“The Last Dance” docuseries reacquainted Michael Jordan fans with some of the iconic sneakers he wore on the court that are still beloved today. And many of those same viewers went to the resale market to buy them as the 10-part show aired on ESPN.
In an email to FN, a GOAT spokesperson said there was a 68% increase in Air Jordan sales the week “The Last Dance” debuted, and since its introduction sales grew significantly, helped by timely releases such as the Air Jordan 5 “Fire Red” and the Air Jordan 1 “Royal Toe.”
As for StockX, senior economist Jesse Einhorn told FN that he’s confident “The Last Dance” was a catalyst for search traffic and sales.
“It’s difficult to disentangle cause and effect on our marketplace, it’s hard to know why sneakers are performing well,” StockX senior economist Jesse Einhorn told FN. “Sometimes it’s just the fact that it’s a popular style, but other times there are exogenous factors like this documentary. I do think the documentary played at least some part in boosting both the new Jordans that dropped and the older models that were already on our our platform.”
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According to Einhorn, for the first eight episodes and not including last night’s finale, three of the top five best-selling Jordans during the docuseries on “the stock market of things” were all released in the five weeks from its debut to its finish. Those looks include the Air Jordan 5 “Fire Red,” Air Jordan 1 High “Court Purple” and the Air Jordan 1 “Royal Toe.” And since its April 19 premiere, Einhorn stated Jordan sneaker sales have climbed 38% for the four-week period over the previous month.
As for site traffic, the Einhorn stated each day the documentary aired there was an average increase of 76% to Jordan catalog pages compared to a typical Sunday. Concerning specific dates, StockX experienced its highest traffic ever on Air Jordan 1 pages on May 3 when ESPN aired an episode featuring MJ wearing the sneaker against the New York Knicks, which was twice as high as its March average, and pages for the Air Jordan 10 and Air Jordan 11 hit their highest traffic points ever during the fourth episode.
As of time of publication today, the highest bid on StockX on the Air Jordan 1 High “Court Purple” is $319, the Air Jordan 1 High “Royal Toe” is $302 and the Air Jordan 5 “Fire Red” is $260. Those same shoes on GOAT are listed for as high as $430, $355 and $265, respectively.
Although Einhorn admitted he’s confident “The Last Dance” helped boost Air Jordan sales, he said he didn’t expect it to.
“In the history of the marketplace, there have been very few real world events that have had tangible and material and measurable impact on prices and sales,” Einhorn said. “It’s such a large global liquid marketplace that you don’t usually see something like a sporting event or a documentary or an awards show really move the needle. There’s too many buyers and sellers out there for it to really matter most of the time.”
Einhorn compared what happened with “The Last Dance” to a specific event that did create a spike in sales: NBA star Kawhi Leonard, a New Balance athlete, leading the Toronto Raptors to an NBA title in 2019.
“The only kind of comparable example I can think of this is during the NBA finals last year when Kawhi Leonard’s sneakers skyrocketed in price after he won the MVP award. New Balance sales as a whole went up,” Einhorn said. “That was something was almost certainly attributable to a real world event. What we’re seeing with the documentary is kind of comparable to that and also in some ways even more impressive because Jordan Brand is so much larger than New Balance and it takes so much more activity to move the needle. It’s the largest brand on our platform.”
Aside from the new releases, StockX said one of the highest increases in sales price is the Air Jordan 1 “Chicago” that released in 2015, which was reselling for $900 at the start of the series and over the past 10 days has an average resale price of more than $140. Also, the Air Jordan 1 Retro Bred “Banned” released in 2016, which was reselling for $620 in March has climbed 33% to sell for an average of $829, with a sale as high as $1,000.
The docuseries also helped sales of sneakers and merchandise of Jordan’s teammate during that time, Scottie Pippen. According to StockX, daily sales of Pippen sneakers and merchandise are up 50% since the “The Last Dance” premiered.
