words & images // Zack Schlemmer
In honor of this year's March Madness, we have a very special Vintage Ad collection, featuring the Nike Team Sports ad series from 1994-95 with pros in their respective former college's apparel.
In conjunction with Foot Locker and Champs Sports, Nike released this classic series at the height of "jersey madness"—the era when every kid was begging their parents for the overpriced basketball jerseys of their favorite pro players and college teams.
If you’ve watched ESPN’s Fab Five documentary, then you know the controversy surrounding Nike and the NCAA making money off jerseys and apparel sold with players like Chris Webber’s number, while C-Webb himself wasn’t making a cent. Nike found the perfect solution for themselves for the always-questionable practice of making money off amateur athletes by suiting up various players in their college duds after they had turned pro for this Team Sports ad series. But hey, as you can see, the results were pretty damn cool.
Check out Chris Webber and his Fab Five teammate Juwan Howard in Michigan gear, Alonzo Mourning at Georgetown, and the iconic Michael Jordan North Carolina ad, and while you watch this year's March Madeness, let us know if you were ever a victim of the jersey madness that these ads may have helped inflict upon you.
