What’s the most important thing about sports? Is it the stats? Accolades? Records? Championships? Awards? Although these accomplishments illustrate the golden picture of professional sports, they’re not what allow our players to perform the way they do. The most important thing that allows professional sports to be entertaining in performance, skill, and style, is, of course, the apparel. Whether it comes to football, golf, volleyball, lacrosse, or basketball, the gear involved with each of these sports is what makes them so uniquely different and enjoyable.
The apparel of basketball has by far been the largest influence in modern-day pop culture. And, ironically, the sport of basketball doesn’t even require that much gear at all. But if you would ever ask someone who plays basketball what the most important thing to wear is, nearly every single player would say shoes.
Shoes have played such an important role in the sport of basketball and have been a staple point of what symbolizes and embodies the sport. Think of brands such as Converse and Jordan, who were represented by sports legends Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan, and how they have influenced our culture today. People that don’t even play basketball or who have never even touched a basketball wear their basketball shoes, thereby becoming some of the most common styles you see when you look at someone’s feet. Shoe and sneaker culture has been built up by the sport of basketball, and without it, people wouldn’t be wearing the style of sneakers we wear today. No one in the world wouldn’t even know what the Air Force 1s would be without basketball.
Today, the famous Nike Kobe brand has allowed us to enter a new age of sneaker culture and basketball shoes. Just like the age of Jordans and Converse, the Kobe brand has impacted modern-day pop culture immensely.
The year of 2020 will forever go down as a year of infamy, starting with the tragic death of the late, great Kobe Bryant. Before his death, Bryant had become one of the most successful, sought after, and, arguably, one of the greatest basketball players to ever walk this Earth.
Along with his incredible success in the game, Bryant also became an amazing father, Oscar-winning author, women’s sports ambassador, and one of the most impactful Nike athletes of all time.
With Bryant signing his name to Nike, designers of the brand and Bryant himself were able to create one of, if not the, greatest basketball shoe lines ever. Through collaboration with Bryant’s incredible mind, the shoes produced are some of the most innovative, creative, and best-performing basketball shoes ever, with some players even wearing his shoes that were produced 13 years ago.
Upon his death, the entire world was stunned and underwent emotional agony. Bryant’s name and all the families involved with the tragic helicopter crash were highlighted everywhere, ranging from the newspaper, national television, and all over social media.
Following the tragic news however, a new phrase would highlight anything that involved his name and image… SOLD OUT. If you were to ever browse nike.com or the Nike app during this tragic week, anything that had the famous Mamba logo would be completely unavailable. Because of his death, everyone wanted some piece of signature apparel to remember this incredible athlete. But with that however, people also used his name for their own personal advantage. His innovative shoes and stylish athletic apparel were all collected by resellers who marked up the prices of the brand by astonishing percentages.
Kobe Bryant’s shoes used to be widely available for any consumer. It was never hard for someone to walk into a Foot Locker and ask for the latest Kobe model. Today, it’s pretty much impossible for anyone to walk into a store and find a retailed Kobe shoe. For example, the most popular Kobe shoe among his line is the Kobe 6, specifically the Grinch Christmas exclusive colorway. In 2010, the original retail price of this shoe was presented at $130. Then in 2020, Nike released the Protro (performance retro) version for $180. It’s literally impossible to find this shoe in any Nike retail store or website or any major sneaker retail store like Foot Locker or Champs. If you want to get your hands on this shoe, you would have to shop through today’s most popular and reliable resale companies such as GOAT, eBay, and StockX. However, seeing the price of this historical basketball shoe through these companies will have your jaw dropping. For this study, we will be using the Protro version of the Nike Kobe 6 Grinch colorway, since it is more available in all shoe sizes compared to the 2010 originals, and the average men’s shoe size in America, 10.5. On GOAT, the Grinches go for $867, eBay has them for $901.99, and the price on StockX is $810. The lowest markup percentage out of all three of these major resale companies comes out to be 450%.
These numbers are absolutely mind blowing for anyone on this planet. Ever since the death of Bryant, pretty much every single pair of his shoes were marked up well over 200% and have been increasing consistently to this day. It became clear to the world of sneakers and basketball that the Kobe brand has now been used for other people’s own financial gain. Every release of his shoes or apparel after his death would be sold out instantly, causing Nike to have issues on how to control the consumption of the Kobe brand. This would begin Nike and the widowed Vanessa Bryant’s relationship to become rocky and inconsistent.
Nike and Vanessa would have complications of availability among release dates as well as what styles would be released to the general public. Nike even released a Kobe shoe without Vanessa’s permission after his death. But, after several miscommunications between Nike and Vanessa, she would eventually cut ties with Nike by not resigning her husband’s name to the brand in 2021.
This time period of the Kobe brand left fans and players saddened. It gave the sneaker community a realization that the only way to wear a pair of Kobe shoes was to pay at least $400-$500 for something that was originally $130. With the relationship between the Bryant name and Nike ending, resellers would take advantage of this event and use it to mark up the prices to what we see today.
Nowadays, we are met with a new culture of sneakers and basketball shoes. Kobes now represent players who are among the elite when it comes to the game of basketball. Seeing players wear Kobes in the basketball community has compelled our minds to think that that player is one of the best on the team. With how rare Kobe shoes are, it’s always a pleasant surprise and amazing sight to see when someone has them on.
However, these past two years have made us question how rare Kobe shoes may become in the future. With difficulties between Vanessa and Nike subsiding, an amazing announcement was made last year in that Vanessa Bryant has decided to resign the contract of her husband’s name and Nike. Additionally, it was then announced that the brand of Kobe Bryant would relaunch on August 24th, also known as “Kobe Day”.
Leading up to this day, many new releases of Kobe shoes and colorways have been announced for August, this upcoming holiday season, and next summer.
The relaunch of the Kobe brand on August 24th included four shoes that were released at 8:24AM. Although these releases were sold out immediately with limited availability, it marked the next age of the Kobe brand and brought us back to something that the sneaker and basketball community missed dearly.
The relaunch of the Nike Kobe brand is much more than a money making/spending symbol for most. It’s helping us reconnect, remember, and honor the amazing human being Kobe Bryant was and what he represented. His shoe line was the embodiment of innovativeness, creativity, and performance, bringing back important aspects of what makes basketball shoes so unique to any other shoe in the world.
