Ever since 2019 Travis Scott has been the main celebrity ambassador for Nike and Jordan Brand. Ever since the original Travis Scott collaboration with the Air Jordan 1, Travis has had several Jordan and Nike collaborations with shoes and apparel. However, after the AstroWorld concert incident Nike has canceled the release of the Travis Scott Air Max 1 and have not rescheduled the release since. This week Jordan brand announced a new collaboration with DJ Khaled. Dj Khaled is not a new face for Jordan brand but he has never had his own line of products that released to the public. The line includes 4 different colors of the Air Jordan 5 as well as a full line of apparel. When I first saw him post pictures of the shoes I assumed it was something gifted to him by Jordan Brand as we saw with the “We the Best” Jordan 3’s. Now that we saw a whole commercial promoting the collaboration it is for sure a release to the public.

The shoes come in 4 different color ways, including a purple, blue, grey, and salmon color. It has not been confirmed exactly how these will release, but it has been confirmed that it will be multiple releases. I would not be shocked if each pair will be exclusive to a city or region. Other shoes in the past have released with 4 colors usually one will be North America exclusive, Asia exclusive, Europe exclusive, and then one limited to a city of friends and family. One thing we can know for sure is that these will not be easy to get and will likely fetch a ridiculously high resell value.

In the last two years as a result of the pandemic and supply chain issues retail stores have been struggling to keep up their inventory. With sneakers it is almost impossible to find a specific shoe at the mall anymore. Recently, Nike and several other stores announced that this is going to get even worse. Aside from supply chain issues, Nike has begun to cut out retails and focus on selling in their own stores and website instead. In recent years Nike has pulled their products from DSW, Macy’s, Urban Outfitters, and Zappos. The most recent retailer however is much more alarming. On March 1st Footlocker announced that “no single vendor is expected to represent more than 60% of its business this year.” This might not seem significant but in 2020 Nike accounted for 75% of their sales. The announcement also caused Footlockers stock to fall 35% in a day.

In my opinion this is just the beginning of what is to come. With sneakers becoming so popular Nike is starting to realize that they no longer need retailers to push their product. Selling only directly to customers saves them huge amounts of money. For the average consumer this is a big problem as most people do not live near a Nike store and rely on retailers to buy shoes.