First off I would like to say “Thank you Sweet Baby Jesus” that Nike has finally released the Air Mag from Back To The Future II!
When I initially skimmed through a post on my Blackberry about the Air Mag being released, I just wanted to kiss whoever it was at Nike that finalized this decision, because I have been waiting for this shoe since I saw the movie. I even waited on line for four entire days outside the 125th Street House of Hoops in Harlem back when the Nike Mag Inspired “Marty McFly Hyperdunk” was getting released, so you can only imagine the excitement I felt when I found out that Nike was releasing the Air Mag.
Then reality set in.
I carefully read all of the details of the release and realized that Nike would only be releasing 1,500 pairs of the Air Mag (1510 if you are going by the official poster outside of the Nike Sportswear Store at 21 Mercer, but we’ll re-visit that later).
Additionally the only way that you would be able to get the shoes would be by bidding on them via the Air Mag eBay page, with all of the proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
This was great news: sneakers helping the greater good sounded amazing; until I found out that the first pair that sold went for over $37,000 to UK rapper Tinie Tempah.
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Now it’s confession time, I am probably one of the biggest sneakerheads that you will meet, that doesn’t do it for anything other than the love of the shoes.
After I waited on line for four days for the McFly Hyperdunk (above), I ended up wearing them. I wear everything and I would have easily dropped upwards of $2,000 on a pair of Air Mags, but that would have probably been my limit. Nike has made it so that even the sneaker heads who love their product and are probably the biggest fans of the shoe won’t be able to afford it. Perfect.
Instead they have made a shoe that will only be available to the celebrity sect that can afford to frivolously blow tens of thousands of dollars on sneakers; and the wealthy nerds out there who want to put the Air Mag in a glass case and leave them to their children in their will. The guys like me who just want to own and wear the Air Mag from one of their favorite movies are out of luck.
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The shoe meant so much to me when I saw it as a child. For one, it lit up and better yet, it laced up by itself! It also was a necessary shoe if you wanted to use a hoverboard, and who didn’t want a hoverboard!?
Nike has successfully killed that dream.
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to make 15,000 pairs of the shoe and sell them for $1,500 a piece? As ridiculous as that sounds to some, it would have given people like myself – who really wanted the shoe – somewhat of an opportunity to buy a pair and they could have still donated the proceeds to the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
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I’m not trying to sound like an awful person when I say this, but it almost feels like Nike is hiding behind the charity to create hype for themselves and completely forgetting about the people who were really looking forward to the release of this shoe. The guys like me who don’t have $30,000 to spend on student loan payments, much less a pair of shoes. Guys like me who signed the McFly 2015 (above) petition years ago for Nike to bring back the Aig Mag apparently did it so that when it came out, I wouldn’t even be able to get a pair of my own … how ironic.
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Don’t get me wrong, I think that Nike is doing a great service to society by donating all of the proceeds from the sale of this shoe to the Michael J. Fox Foundation to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease, but I think they completely forgot about the sneaker community when they released the Air Mag this way, and I’m pretty sure they know what they did. They can hide behind the fact that you can never really tell how much shoes will go for at auction but c’mon, Nike! This is hype that has been building up for 22 years! I’m pretty sure that you knew these would not be selling for $200, or even $2000 for that matter.
This isn’t the first time that you have turned your backs on the same community that made you famous, Nike, but it is the most blatant. Let’s be completely honest Nike, you are a running company but the street and sneakerhead community made you famous and if there were ONE shoe that we were all waiting on, it was this one and you made it near impossible to get.
Have you become so out of touch with reality that you think that just because you have people spending so much on after market prices on your limited edition sneakers and waiting on lines for days, that those same people can now spend $30,000 on sneakers?
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I want a Lamborghini and although I do believe that one day I will be able to afford one, for now sneakers is what helps me stand out from the crowd. You gave away my favorite pair to the Lamborghini drivers. There is something about a limited edition pair of sneakers on my feet that just makes the rest of your outfit so much better that I wouldn’t mind going to great lengths to get a few of the pairs that I have.
However, none of them ever cost me tens of thousands of dollars and probably never will. The craziest thing is that I will continue to buy Nike sneakers and the only thing that I can do is wait for 2015 and hope that Nike actually releases the shoes to the masses. Hopefully Mattel releases that hoverboard too!
