Is 'Air' a True Story? All About the Film Inspired by Michael Jordan's Nike Shoes

Here's the true story behind Ben Affleck's Nike-centered sports drama, including the key players involved and how they got Michael Jordan on board

Ben Affleck's latest sports drama places its focus on a different kind of game: the sneaker game.

Heavily centered around basketball and a revolutionizing partnership with Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan, the movie Air — which was released in theaters on April 5 and hits Amazon Prime Video on May 12 — chronicles the rise of Nike, Inc. and how the sneaker brand, Air Jordan, came to be.

Based on a true story, Air is not only helmed by Affleck (who's directing for the first time since 2016's Live By Night) but also stars the Oscar winner as Nike co-founder Philip Knight alongside Matt Damon as sports marketing exec Sony Vaccaro who helped sign then-rookie Jordan to the company.

Joining the talent team is Viola Davis as Jordan's mom Deloris, and the actress' real-life husband Julius Tennon as the NBA star's dad James. Air also stars Jason Bateman, Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Chris Tucker and Gustaf Skarsgård.

"This moving story follows the career-defining gamble of an unconventional team with everything on the line, the uncompromising vision of a mother who knows the worth of her son's immense talent, and the basketball phenom who would become the greatest of all time," an official synopsis for the film reads.

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The film marks Affleck and Damon's first film from their new production company Artists Equity. Affleck and Damon previously won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay back in 1998 for writing Good Will Hunting together, which they also starred in. Most recently, Damon and Affleck co-starred together in 2021's The Last Duel.

Here's everything to know about the true story behind Air, including the key players involved in creating the cultural phenomenon Air Jordan.

Who is Sonny Vaccaro?

Sonny Vaccaro (née John Paul Vincent) was born on Sept. 23, 1939. A Pennsylvania native, Vaccaro is a former sports marketing executive who's best known for his tenure at Nike — specifically, signing then-rookie Jordan his first-ever sneaker deal with the company.

In 1984, the then-21-year-old Chicago Bulls player was convinced by Vaccaro to sign a $2.5 million, five-year contract with the athletic corporation. At the time, the dynamic between the athlete and the company was incomparable to what it is today.

During an interview with GQ, Vaccaro (now 84 years old) described Nike as a "mom-and-pop operation" at the time — a company on the rise in comparison to Adidas and Converse which had been the reigning sneaker brands in the basketball scene before Nike's domination.

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For that reason, signing a rising, untapped star like Jordan was an ambitious feat for Nike — particularly Vaccaro, who admitted on the Dan Patrick Show that "every day" since meeting him "for the next three and a half months in pursuing Jordan was a chore."

"The idea for me was to help convince him to believe in this young company to do something that they've never done before. That was the chore," Vaccaro explained of the talent who everybody wanted to sign. "He had his own mind. He had his idea of what he wanted to do and he didn't want to go with Nike, that's for sure. So it was my greatest journey."

But for Vaccaro, he credits, in part, a special bond shared with Jordan — who was a "stranger" when he first met him — as the key to sealing the deal. "From that first day, there was a connection you could never explain," Vaccaro told the outlet of meeting Jordan for the first time.

"I never thought in my wildest dreams that I'd ever be involved on the professional side in recruiting a player that was going to be the signature of Nike forever," he added. But it wasn't the convincing of Jordan alone that was going to be enough, as Vaccaro "knew the only way to Michael's heart was to convince his family" — specifically, his mom Deloris Jordan.

Vaccaro was ultimately fired from Nike in 1991 amid the company's meteoric rise. "They did well after that, but I also did well after I left," Vaccaro told Bleacher Report in 2015. He went on to work for Adidas and later Reebok.

The former shoe exec was also the founder of the prestigious (now-defunct) ABCD Camp, considered the mecca for high school basketball players hoping to get recruited to play in the NBA — before the organization's set age limit, restricting young hopefuls from declaring for the NBA draft.

Active between 1984 and 2006, Vaccaro's ABCD Camp — located in Teaneck, New Jersey's Fairleigh Dickinson College — was invite-only and housed prominent college coaches, NBA scouts and front-office personnel to get a glimpse at the future of the game. Its notable alumni include Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kevin Garnett, to name a few.

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Who is Phil Knight?

Phil Knight was born on Feb. 24, 1938. An Oregon native, Knight is best known as the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike — and previously, the chairman and CEO of the athletic company.

An athlete in his own right, Knight was a middle-distance runner at the University of Oregon and graduated with a business degree in three years in 1959. After briefly serving in the United States Army (and seven years in Army Reserve), Knight earned his master's degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1962.

The time Knight spent at each educational institution, respectively, had pivotal influences on his career successes. His athletic involvement at the University of Oregon introduced him to track-and-field club coach Bill Bowerman, with whom he would later co-found Nike — while his studies at Stanford sparked his interest in selling running shoes, leading to his discovery of what became the billion-dollar brand.

"I took a class in entrepreneurship and wrote a paper that the U.S. shoe market was being dominated by German shoe companies Adidas and Puma," Knight explained on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. "It didn't make sense to me that you make shoes in Germany," he added — leading to his research paper titled, "Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras?"

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Upon graduating, Knight "took a trip to Japan to call in a shoe company" and secured distribution rights from Tiger shoe company for the western United States while there. When he received his first samples about a year after placing the order, he sent two pairs to Bowerman.

"My old track coach was always experimenting with shoes, Knight said of Bowerman ahead of his Japan travels, noting that his early relationship with him "planted a seed" in what blossomed into an unimaginable partnership that evolved the athletic footwear industry.

Nike, originally called Blue Ribbon Sports at the time of Knight and Bowerman's handshake agreement in 1964, was dubbed in 1971 after the Greek winged goddess of victory. As for its famed swoosh design, an eager graphic design student at Portland State University named Carolyn Davidson is credited for its creation.

According to Nike's website, Knight said of the swoosh at the time: "Well, I don't love it. But it will grow on me." Knight explained that when they went public with the design, they gave Davidson 500 shares of stock "and she hasn't sold a single share," he said. "They are now worth a million dollars."

In June 2015, Knight and Nike announced that he would step down as the company's chairman (though he shortly came out of retirement in September 2017). Since then, he published the memoir Shoe Dog in 2016 and has been involved in numerous other sports-related projects and philanthropic endeavors.

How did the brand Air Jordan start?

No one is as synonymous with the shoe game quite like the Chicago Bulls superstar, who introduced his eponymous Air Jordans to the world in 1985 upon signing a five-year, multimillion-dollar deal with Nike.

Since its launch, the sneaker line has successfully evolved into the Jordan Brand, ranging from shoes to clothing and gear, including bags, backpacks and hats. But the brand (that's brought in $19.4 billion in revenue over the last five fiscal years) comes from humble beginnings.

In fact, the partnership with the former Chicago Bulls player — who reportedly still makes $100 million annually from Nike royalties alone — almost didn't happen. "He didn't even want to fool with Nike," sportswriter Roland Lazenby, author of the 2014 book Michael Jordan: The Life, told the Los Angeles Times.

"It was hard to sign him because everybody wanted him," Knight said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "We had a lot of really good players, but we didn't have a lot of really great players and we thought he had the chance to be that."

Knight added, "He was obviously way better than we could've ever imagined." Knight and Vaccaro's convincing efforts were aimed at Deloris (who believed strongly in economic empowerment), in addition to Jordan (who almost passed on the meeting with Nike).

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"Nike gave him an unbelievable deal, a 25% royalty. And it would take years before someone else in the shoe industry would get that," Lazenby said of the agreement that placed nearly all of its shoe marketing money behind Jordan.

But the Nike co-founder wasn't always on board either. "Phil Knight was mildly interested at best," Lazenby said. "But Vaccaro was relentless, and he soon formed an allegiance with Rob Strasser and with Peter Moore. They were both at Nike, and they were essential guys in driving the whole Jordan idea forward."

Vaccaro's marketing skills, in collaboration with Knight's business-backed strategies, are the reason for much of Nike's success. "They're a marketing company. They're not an athletic shoe company. They're the best marketing company ever to live," Vaccaro told Bleacher Report.

Is Michael Jordan in Air?

While Air tells the story of Jordan's early partnership with Nike, the basketball icon himself is not in the film — nor is he portrayed by an actor. Director Affleck felt strongly about the reasoning behind his decision to keep him from the film.

"I thought the minute I turn the camera on somebody and ask the audience to believe that person was Michael Jordan, the whole movie falls apart," Affleck said. "When somebody is that powerful, where just their silhouette s a globally recognized phenomenon, you lose people."

However, the superstar athlete gave Affleck his blessing ahead of embarking on his latest project — and even put in a few requests. Particularly, he put together a list of "what I care about" and shared it with the director.

"We just worked and worked and worked and worked," Affleck said at an advanced screening of Air. "And then when I went to Viola, I was like, 'Look, you probably don't want to do this, but Michael Jordan wants you to,'" he said of one of the athlete's specific casting requests.

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