StockX, the online sneaker reseller, has seen a surge in the number of Air Jordan shoes submitted and listed to the website, CEO Scott Cutler told CNBC’s Jim Cramer Wednesday.
The company, which launched in 2015, has authenticated a total of 3.5 million pairs of the highly sought after shoe brand and 1 million of those have come in the last six months alone, Cutler said in a “Mad Money” interview.
“We certainly experienced what we call the Jordan effect,” Cutler said, referring to the highly anticipated launch of a sports documentary centered on NBA legend Michael Jordan. ”We’ve been able to capture these cultural moments” and “we saw that instantly reflected in the prices of the products on the platform.”
The spike in demand for the shoes was sparked by ESPN’s airing of “The Last Dance,” chronicling Jordan and the Chicago Bull’s six championship run in the 1990s. The 10-part docuseries helped fill the glut of airtime left open by the stoppage of American professional sports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“What we saw with ‘The Last Dance,’ which by the way I thought was an amazing documentary, we actually saw the demand for Jordan products go through the roof on StockX and we saw that increase dramatically on a year-over-year basis,” Cutler explained. “People, you know, whether it was nostalgia or excitement of what they saw, they went back to even the original OG Jordan and bought those on the platform.”
StockX wasn’t the only auction site to see sellers and consumers flood its platform for Jordan Brand gear, a brand that’s owned by Nike. Sotheby’s in May facilitated a record $560,000 sale of a pair of Air Jordan 1s that Jordan wore in a game and autographed.
Air Jordans are a very popular collector’s item among shoe enthusiasts referred to as sneakerheads.