Reebok might have the last laugh when it comes to its decades-old beef with Michael Jordan.
During the 1992 Olympics, Jordan was a Nike athlete, and in his usual competitive nature, he shunned everything that wasn’t helping him dominate. So, when accepting his gold medal, he was aware that while he wasn’t a Reebok athlete, he had to display the Reebok logo on all the team-issued gear. But in typical Jordan fashion, he did what he wanted– and that was to cover up the chest logo with the American flag while the Dream Team got their hardware.
But now, almost 30 years later, Reebok has apparently been paying attention to episode six of The Last Dance documentary currently airing on ESPN, which is how the story came to light. First, Reebok posted the jacket on Instagram with a caption that read, “We would have preferred the flag on the other shoulder.” And now, after cleverly poking fun at that topic, Reebok has decided to rerelease the jacket. An iteration of the jacket dropped in 2018, and it’s pretty similar to the original with a white base–the left sleeve is composed mostly of red stripes, and the right side consists of blue stars. Ironically, the reebok logo is on the opposite side of the retro edition.
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“We’re not insisting that he refuse the jacket,” said Steve Miller, Nike’s director of sports marketing at the time when asked about Jordan’s protest. “We’ve had no conversations with him whatsoever. Michael is a very interesting individual, one with a very strong value system.
The USA track jackets along with other colorways will release on the Reebok webstore May 8. Cop yours for $80.
