Nike/Converse/Jordan Brand World Basketball Festival pt 1

Aug
21/10

Written by Coach
Saturday, 21 August 2010

If you remember, back in June, Nike invited WeAreHQ out to NY for a media event to hear the announcement of the first ever World Basketball Festival. This was initially due to be held in Rucker Park, Times Square and Madison Square Gardens. Fast forward to August and being in NY, we find out that the Time Square section was to be cancelled and moved to the world famous Radio City Music hall. This will all be explained shortly…

Starting off on the Wednesday morning, we were up at 7am and had to make our way over to NikeTown to interview Lamar Odom (as seen earlier in the week). With that done, the next step was for the Western Europe team to go and experience the Nike basketball history, over in Harlem at the Ball Room.

Question: If Air Force 1 came out in 1983, why did Nike do a big campaign for the Air Force 1 25th Anniversary a year early? And why does it say 1982 on all Air Forces now?

This was the most impressive location that Nike have produced… Period! I have never seen the product, information (Aathough some of it was wrong!), design and thought that went in to it was incredible. The time-line of the basketball jersey, the actual basketball and the time-line of the game it self.

iTHE FIRST EVER RULES OF BASKETBALL!!! Written by the person who created the game… James Naismith! Thank you!

At the back of the room was the creative section that showed how certain basketball shoes were created and where the inspiration came from. That was inspirational just seeing it. The Hyperfuse, the Kobes, even the new Air Jordans were shown in its early stages with diagrams and prototypes along side.

Then there was the signature move screens on the side walls. This is where you can use the 42″ touch screen TVs to scroll through players in the league and watch them teach you their “Signature Move”… Still quite baffled why Lebron James had a Crossover as his signature move? Oh well…! But the best part of the touch screen software was the shoe archives!! You were able to scroll through all the shoes in the database till you see one you like… Click on it… It will tell you about the shoes, you can spin them 360 degrees and zoom in and all sorts… Just cant hold them! Sounds familiar! Story of my life!