The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 279 — Right idea, wrong execution 👟
Let's talk about Sabrina Ionescu's signature shoe
Goooood morning, family. Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thanks so much for rocking with me today. Hope your weekend was swell.
REMINDER: The KYW Mailbag is coming this Friday! Make sure you submit your questions here. We’ve only got a few so far for March, so there’s definitely plenty of room for you to add yours!
Let’s jump in.
Skipping the line
On the WNBA side of things, New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu just announced her very first signature shoe with Nike.
A quick look:
The backdrop: This has been in the works for a while. It feels like Nike has been building this up for Sabrina for a while.
Sole Retreiver first reported that Ionescu had a sneaker coming with Nike back in February. It’s reportedly slated to drop in the fall.
But even before then, Ionescu had largely been set up for this. She was one of the faces for the GT Cut when it was first released in 2021.
Now, she becomes the 8th woman to ever launch a signature shoe with Nike, which is fantastic news.
But…When I first learned about this, I couldn’t help but think about the Sports Business Journal column that has been haunting me since it was released back in 2021.
It talked about the disparity in media coverage and opportunities between Black players and their white counterparts in the WNBA. SBJ did a review of media coverage to actually give us a tangible figure on that gap.
Newsflash: It’s a bad look.
They counted 550 articles from major sports outlets covering the WNBA during the 2020 season.
There was an average of 52 media mentions for Black players and an average of 118 for white players.
According to the same piece, 80% of the players in the WNBA were Black at the time. Black players also won 80% of the league’s awards that season but got very little shine for it.
The crux of it all was this particularly damning line.
"Black WNBA players won postseason awards. White women won coverage."
Why this matters: This shoe is that coverage disparity in physical form. The positive and favorable media coverage Ionescu has gotten for much of her career, to this point, led to this opportunity.
This isn’t to say that Sabrina Ionescu isn’t worthy or that it’s bad that another woman got a signature shoe. But, to be frank, some of her Black counterparts are probably a bit more deserving of such a distinction.
A’ja Wilson, for example, is a WNBA superstar who has multiple MVP trophies, a Defensive Player of the Year award and a WNBA title. She’s also one of the brightest personalities in sports and just 26 years old.
Even on Ionescu’s own team, Jonquel Jones is an MVP and a much more decorated athlete than Ionescu at this point.
The other side: One could say Nike is tapping Ionescu here for her youth. She’s only a 3-year pro and has been an All-Star. Her name has been in the headlines for the last half-decade.
But the same can be said for the likes of Wilson, who has one of the greatest college basketball resumes ever and is building a pretty great one on the W side, too.
In the end: I don’t want to harp on this too much. The fact that Sabrina has a signature shoe isn’t a bad thing at all. And I’m certainly not here for pitting any of these women against each other. That’s wack.
I think it’s just worth noting that an imbalance that was discovered two years ago still persists and it’s manifesting in the form of major opportunities to some players and not others. That’s not cool.
Temperature check
Nike’s third-quarter earnings call coming up this week and it’s going to be a big one.
Here’s why: In December during the brand’s last update things seemed to be going swell.
The glut of inventory Nike was sitting on in the fall dwindled down behind the massive markdowns we saw.
The company’s revenue also jumped by 17% year over year.
What I’m interested in seeing this quarter is whether those trends held steady or not. It’s one thing to reverse an issue for a single quarter, but it’s another to be able to stay the course. Especially amid a bit of chaos.
The state of things: We aren’t seeing huge discounts now, but there are still lots of footwear and apparel markdowns present with the swoosh.
Demand across the footwear industry has seen a bit of a downturn to pre-pandemic levels. Even some of the most hyped sneakers aren’t completely sold out. The secondary market is reacting to it.
We’ve also had lots of drama on Nike’s end. The company lost a core basketball style and a top-selling model with Kyrie Irving leaving the brand. That’s only a fraction of Nike’s sportswear line, but still. It’s impactful.
Tuesday is going to be interesting.
Is the Jordan 3 the GOAT
Let me just start this off by saying this is one man’s opinion, but the reason I was so happy to finally get my hands on the White Cement Air Jordan 3 wasn’t just because it looks great. I really feel like this is the greatest sneaker ever.
Here’s why: I don’t know if Michael Jordan sticks around if Tinker Hatfield doesn’t shift the direction of the Jordan line in the way that he did.
No need to rehash the AJ2 history. Jordan didn’t like it. He was ready to leave Nike after being dissatisfied with it.
Tinker comes and works his magic with the design of the AJ3. Then we get the ‘88 Dunk contest and All-Star game debuts.
Michael Jordan is no longer just a thing when it comes to the NBA. He’s the thing.
I make my case on the latest episode of Special Delivery.
This shoe changed so much. There are other shoes you could definitely argue for here and I won’t dispute that. But these joints changed how society viewed sneakers on a mainstream level. I think that’s hard to argue against.
A D.C. Disaster
To say things got out of hand last week with the Nike SB Air Jordan 4 drop might be understating how bad it was. Especially so out here in my city.
What happened: The Crushed D.C. skate shop completely lost control of the sneaker’s release on Thursday. The store decided to go the first come, first serve route.
This is what that looked like.
Complete chaos. No, this video isn’t hyping things. It was really that bad. It got to the point where employees were just tossing raffle tickets into the crowd.
This was bad. It’s why Nike changed its terms of service with retailers. This can’t happen. Hopefully, the shop learns from this and is better moving forward.
What’s droppin, bruh?
Nike SB x Air Jordan 4 (SNKRS release) — Tuesday, March 21
Nike Air Zoom Generation — Tuesday, March 21
Action Bronson x New Balance 990v6 (New Balance drop) — Friday, March 24
Nike x Fly Streetwear Dunk Low “Gardenia” — Saturday, March 25
Nike Air Max 1 ‘86 “Big Bubble” — Sunday, March 26
That’s a wrap! Thanks so much for rocking with me today. I appreciate you. Have an amazing week.
Let’s chat again on Friday. DON’T FORGET. GET THOSE QUESTIONS IN.
Peace and love. Be easy, be safe, be kind. And we out.
-Sykes 💯