All About Sonny Vaccaro, the Former Sports Exec Who Signed Michael Jordan to Nike

Matt Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro in the 2023 sports drama Air, which tells the story of how Michael Jordan's legendary Air Jordan sneaker line with Nike came to be

The name Sonny Vaccaro might not ring a bell — but the athletes he helped nab sneaker deals for will.

Vaccaro, a sports executive who previously worked at Nike, Adidas and Reebok, was one of the men responsible for signing Michael Jordan to Nike and Kobe Bryant to Adidas. Now, the story of his blockbuster Jordan deal is being told in the 2023 movie Air, which stars Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Viola Davis. Affleck, who also directs the film, called the tale of Vaccaro bringing Jordan to Nike both "remarkable and aspirational."

"This was the best creative and personal experience of our lives and we look forward to many more like it," he added.

For Vaccaro, whose career also includes running high school basketball all-star games and camps and crusading to reform the NCAA, seeing his life on-screen was nothing short of a "dream."

"I never in my wildest dreams ever thought this would happen," he told Footwear News about the film. "I never would have believed or dreamed that any of this would have happened."

From his early days at Nike to his later campaign against the NCAA, here is everything to know about Sonny Vaccaro and his legendary career.

He grew up playing football — not basketball

Vaccaro grew up in Trafford, Pennsylvania, a town 17 miles east of Pittsburgh. His full name is John Paul Vincent Vaccaro, but his mother gave him the nickname "Sonny" — and it stuck.

"My mother always told me that I was a shining light in her life," Vaccaro said in the 2015 ESPN documentary Sole Man. "I was the first child … that's how Sonny came about — my mom just said Sonny."

Growing up, Vaccaro played football and baseball, becoming a star running back in high school, according to Sole Man. He attended Youngstown State University to play football, but an injury ended his career, the New York Times reported. It was during his time at Youngstown State, however, that Vaccaro first became involved with basketball.

According to Vaccaro, Youngstown's head basketball coach at the time — a man named Dom Risselli — approached him for help. "He said, 'Maybe you can help me get some basketball players from Pittsburgh to come to Youngstown State," Vaccaro recalled in Sole Man. "I said, 'I think I can.' And that's how my basketball life started."

He founded the first national high school all-star basketball game in 1965

In 1964, Vaccaro and his childhood friend had the idea to launch a national high school all-star basketball game. The following year, the Dapper Dan Roundball Classic was born, where the best high school players from across the country were invited to the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh to compete. Because of its novelty at the time — there were "no high school all-star games in America in that era," Vaccaro explained in Sole Man — it quickly became a nationwide phenomenon.

"I grew up in western PA, in Pittsburgh, and your whole goal was to be in the Dapper Dan game," University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari said in Sole Man. "There was no McDonald's All American — none of that stuff. It was that game, in the Civic Arena, in the Igloo, sold out every year."

Vaccaro ran the Roundball Classic from 1965 to 2007; during that time, several future NBA legends would play in the game. NBA Hall of Famers Shaquille O'Neal, Patrick Ewing, Moses Malone, Alonzo Mourning, Calvin Murphy, Adrian Dantley and Dominique Wilkins all played in the Roundball.

"Other than the Steelers, the Roundball was probably the most singular storied event in Pittsburgh in those days," Vaccaro recalled to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

He added, "Of all the things I've started, the Roundball put me in a position to be where I am today."

He began working for Nike in 1977

When he started the Roundball Classic, Vaccaro was working as a schoolteacher in his hometown of Trafford — but the sports entrepreneur had more ideas up his sleeve. He developed prototypes for different types of sneakers, including a "more casual, more stylish" tennis shoe and a basketball sandal, and traveled to Beaverton, Oregon, to present them to Nike.

During that meeting, Vaccaro met Rob Strasser, Nike's marketing director at the time. Though Strasser was not interested in Vaccaro's sneaker designs, he was interested in partnering with Vaccaro on breaking into the world of basketball, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"At that time, Nike was a running shoe company … nothing to do with basketball," Vaccaro said in Sole Man. "I said, 'You want to get involved in college basketball? Pay the coaches. We'll give free shoes to all the teams and the kids will wear the shoes.' "

In 1977, his first year with Nike, Vaccaro signed 10 of the top college basketball teams to Nike — including University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Duke, Maryland and Georgia — providing the coaches with $2,000 and the team with free sneakers, according to the L.A. Times. Two years later, that number grew to 50 college coaches — and a Sports Illustrated cover featuring then-Indiana State player Larry Bird in a pair of Nike shoes.

Vaccaro helped convinced Nike to sign Michael Jordan in 1984

Perhaps the biggest deal of Vaccaro's career — and the inspiration for the 2023 film Air — was his role in convincing Nike to offer Jordan his first-ever sneaker deal in 1984 — before Jordan had ever played a game for the Chicago Bulls.

After having success in getting college teams to wear Nike sneakers and apparel, the brand was looking to "get a signature athlete who was going to be a signature marketing icon," Vaccaro said in Sole Man. Particularly, Nike was looking to draft a college player who was entering the 1984 NBA Draft — and were considering offering endorsement deals to Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley and John Stockton, according to USA Today.

But Vaccaro persuaded Nike to go after Jordan and offer him their entire budget, rather than splitting it amongst multiple players. Once Nike agreed, Vaccaro used his close friend, basketball coach George Raveling, to connect him to Jordan. Vaccaro claimed he was able to convince Jordan — who wore Converse in college and was rumored to want to sign with Adidas — to sign with Nike when he told him that Nike wanted to name a sneaker after him.

But it wasn't just Jordan that Vaccaro had to win over — he "knew the only way to Michael's heart was to convince his family," Vaccaro said on the Dan Patrick Show. Particularly, Vaccaro had to get Jordan's mom, Deloris (who is played by Viola Davis in Air) on board — which he did.

Jordan went on to sign a record-breaking five-year, $2.5 million contract with Nike in October 1984, according to Sports Illustrated, and the Air Jordan sneaker line debuted the same year. Nike's goal was to make $3 million in three years off of the Jordan sneakers; the first shoe made $126 million in just one year.

However, there has been debate over who at Nike was most instrumental in signing Jordan. Former Nike head Phil Knight told USA Today in 2015 that "Sonny helped, but he wasn't the MVP in that process." Jordan himself has said it was Raveling and Nike's marketing exec Strasser who sold him on the deal. "Sonny didn't influence me to go to Nike," Jordan told USA Today Sports.

But Vaccaro staunchly defends his version of events, calling himself "the savior of Nike."

"Nobody else (at Nike) really wanted (Jordan), and they didn't know he was going (to the NBA after his junior season at North Carolina)," he said to USA Today Sports. "I just had a hunch. I can't even explain why he was the hunch."

He launched the famous ABCD Camp, a summer basketball camp for the country's best players, in 1984

In a move to continue Nike's influence over the basketball shoe market, Vaccaro started the Academic Betterment and Career Development (ABCD) Camp in 1984 — a summer basketball program for the best basketball players in the country to attend. It was, according to Vaccaro, the "commercialization of summer basketball."

"There was no other shoe company doing it and we had all the good kids," Vaccaro told ESPN in Sole Man.

Vaccaro ran the now-defunct camp from 1984 to 2007, and during that time, hosted several future NBA stars — including Lebron James, Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady, among others, according to the New York Times.

"I basically did it for the exposure of the kids and allowed the betterment of basketball to conduct its own self," Vaccaro told the New York Times about his ABCD Camps.

Nike fired Vaccaro in 1991

Despite the pivotal role Vaccaro played in Nike's expansion into basketball and the success of the Air Jordan line, the relationship between Nike and Vaccaro soured in the early 1990s. The shift occurred when Nike head Knight forced Vaccaro out from the company in 1991 — just months after Jordan had won his first NBA Championship.

According to the L.A. Times, Knight called a meeting with Vaccaro and informed him he no longer had a career at Nike.

"I feel like a gunslinger in the Old West," Vaccaro reportedly told Knight in the meeting, per the L.A. Times. "The townspeople hired a gunslinger — me — to clean up the town and turn it into something they were proud of. Now, those townspeople no longer want the gunslinger around because he just doesn't seem to fit their new image."

Vaccaro signed Kobe Bryant to Adidas in 1996

Jordan wasn't the only major athlete Vaccaro landed an endorsement contract with: In 1996, he signed then-high school senior Kobe Bryant to Adidas, where Vaccaro had moved on to after his departure from Nike.

"Nobody else wanted Kobe [aside from Adidas]. Nike was not involved because he was a high school kid," Vaccaro explained to Footwear News about the deal.

"We had to crawl before we walked," Vaccaro told the New York Times after signing Bryant in 1996. "We've been looking for the right person. We knew Kobe. He'd been to our camp for two years. He'll be a great player. Someday."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Bryant remained with Adidas until 2002, when he reportedly paid $8 million to exit his contract. However, his time with the brand was still critical to Adidas' success, Vaccaro told Footwear News.

"We were betting all the money we had on Kobe, so we couldn't miss on Kobe Bryant. We had to be right — and we were," he said. "Kobe started [with] Adidas. Because of Kobe, Adidas became a viable company."

He helped bring forward a lawsuit against the NCAA

Though Vaccaro started his career by paying college basketball coaches, he's spent recent years working on allowing college athletes to be compensated — and has become an outspoken critic of the NCAA.

"I always believed the kids got the shaft," Vaccaro told the New York Times in 2016. "The NCAA would never allow the kids to have anything."

Vaccaro began by quitting Reebok, the third sneaker company he worked for, in 2007. He went on to make speeches at college campuses across the country, including Duke, Harvard, Yale and the University of Maryland, condemning the NCAA for making millions off of college athletes — and not allowing them to receive any portion of the profits. In one speech, he called the NCAA "the most fraudulent organization that ever lived," according to the NYT.

Vaccaro took his speaking engagements a step further by connecting former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon with antitrust lawyers, who teamed up to file a lawsuit against the NCAA in 2009. The class-action suit went to trial in 2014, and a judge ruled in August that year that the NCAA violated antitrust laws by prohibiting college football and basketball players from earning money from the use of their image and likeness in television broadcasts and video games, according to the New York Times. The judge also declared that players should be given a trust fund with a share of their licensing revenue after leaving school.

It was considered a landmark case, ultimately changing the landscape of college sports. In 2015, the NCAA's new head of regulatory affairs, Oliver Luck, said college athletes had a "fundamental right" to their name, image and likeness (or NIL), according to the New York Times. In 2021, the NCAA announced a new policy that all college athletes could receive compensation from their NIL.

Following the O'Bannon ruling, Vaccaro told USA Today that it was the "proudest moment" of his career. "Obviously, Michael Jordan and Nike gave me my professional start in life," he said. "But on my tombstone, if something is written about me other than hopefully being a decent human being, I helped these kids get recognized."

He added, "I don't know what else in my lifetime I could have done that's more important to me than what is happening. I was part of this."

Vaccaro has been married twice and has four children

Vaccaro was married to his first wife Nancy Schiffaeur for 18 years. The former couple had four children together (two sons and two daughters) before splitting in 1979, according to Sports Illustrated.

He later wed Pamela Monakee on May 5, 1984, in Las Vegas. According to Pam, she proposed to Vaccaro. "I just said, 'Hey, have you ever thought how great it would be to spend the rest of your life with your best friend?'" she told Sports Illustrated.

"Long before we were married, Pam believed in me," Vaccaro said about their partnership. "She always supported my harebrained ideas. I never had anybody with me before."

The couple have now been married nearly 40 years. "We've had a wonderful life together. I wouldn't change one second of it, not one minute," Pam said in Sole Man.

Matt Damon portrays Vaccaro in the 2023 film Air

Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon plays Vaccaro in the 2023 film Air, alongside Affleck who portrays Knight and Chris Tucker as Howard White, a former NBA player and vice president of the Jordan brand.

"I didn't know about Sonny Vaccaro before the movie," Damon told PEOPLE in 2023. "I really genuinely like Sonny and I spent time talking to him and hearing about that time in his life."

The actor also recalled Vaccaro's wife Pam visiting the set. "Sonny came to the set with his wife, and she said, 'It's like you raided his closet,' " he shared.

Damon went on to call Vaccaro "a really endearing, lovely guy," and added of the movie, "It was really more about capturing the spirit of these guys and the camaraderie."

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