Michael Jordan's Agent David Falk Says Star Almost Didn't Sign Nike Contract

Seeing NBA legend Michael Jordan endorse a non-Nike sports apparel brand is hard to fathom, but his agent David Falk told Rich Kleiman of "The Boardroom" that the ex-Chicago Bull star almost didn't sign with them.

"He didn't want to go," Falk told Kleiman in an interview published Tuesday (h/t Shoshy Ciment of Business Insider). "He didn't know anything about it, didn't like the shoes, didn't want to go."

However, Falk said that he guided Jordan to Nike, noting how much the brand wanted him.

"And I thought that Nike was the hungriest for Michael," Falk said. "That they needed him the most, that they would do the most."

As Falk noted, the Converse and Adidas brands were bigger brands in the 1980s. Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Julius Erving were signed with Converse, and as Falk noted, "Adidas had everybody else that mattered."

But Jordan signed with Nike and became a worldwide icon en route to six NBA championships, 10 scoring titles and five MVP awards.

Nike is now the world's top sports apparel brand and reported revenue of $39.1 billion for the 2019 fiscal year.