Nike’s Air Jordan 12 ‘Taxi’ golf shoe sells out in minutes

Yahoo Finance Live's Brad Smith and David Briggs look at Nike's latest Air Jordan drop and why Michael Jordan's product line continues to be one of the most popular and highest-selling shoes.

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: The latest opportunity for sneaker culture to collide with the sport of golf arrives with Nike's drop of the Jordan 12 golf edition. The shoe priced at $220. But finding them through a retail partner or even on the Nike app is about as difficult as trying to hit a 92 foot putt to win a professional golf tournament, which Harold Varner III did while wearing this shoe. I want to bring in Dave for this because you sounded equally as excited as I am about this retro crossover, Dave.

DAVID BRIGGS: Equally excited, but not as effective as you at picking them up. Brad, you're going to have to teach me a thing or two about these Nike sneaker drops. Because a week ago today, they introduced a university blue Jordan golf shoe. I failed to get that one. So I thought, all right. Today, I'm going to stick the landing on it with the taxi model that goes back to a 1997 Air Jordan basketball shoe, dates back to the flu game, which you and I now know is the bad pizza game.

But these things disappeared in a second. And now I see even on StockX, which is the resale website, there is one pair on the entire website at 250 bucks if you wear a size 15. It's interesting, this whole model. You must have it figured out better than I do.

BRAD SMITH: I wish I did. But I think that I just may have gotten lucky out of all of the ones that I've gone after in the past. I have not gotten lucky in those cases. But I will say this may be the best golf shoe release year that Jordan has ever had. You think about the ones that you were just talking about. They had those in I believe ultimately four different colorways, one that's still yet to come, at least in the States. And we already saw a popular reception of the Chicago kind of red version of this very Jordan one golf shoe that you're seeing here on the screen. This is the UNC version.

So those are the Jordan ones that came out in those four colorways and were difficult to get, quite frankly. Actually, five colorways now that I think about it. But then additionally, you've got these Jordan 12s, the taxi edition that just dropped. And what's extremely evident as part of this new direct to consumer strategy that Nike has is they're replacing some facet of retail with resale. You've got extremely limited inventory drops that you literally have to be sitting on the app refreshing in real time to try and purchase once that is available or outside of the store if you get a retail partner the second that they open in order to snag some, Dave.

DAVID BRIGGS: I have a question for you, Brad. Stepping back about 10 or 20 steps from this whole story, Michael Jordan turns 60 next year. Six zero. He has been retired for 20 years. He's an old man. Does Michael Jordan have anything to do with the current success of the Jordan brand of shoes? Or is it more the models, and what they're turning out, and the demand? Is it still Michael Jordan driven? Because I am new to the whole sneaker game.

BRAD SMITH: Well, so on designing and turning some of the Jordan retros into golf editions, it's also about giving culture to a game that has historically been so disenfranchising. And then additionally, you've got the opportunity for new people to be introduced to the game because of the fashion. And I was able to speak with somebody at Stadium Goods, a very popular kind of reseller platform as well as some storefront locations, and he looked at one of the old retro editions. I think it was the fours in the all Black version. And he said, this would make me want to pick up golf if I felt like it was fashionable.

And so that's what's really drawing more people into the game quite frankly too in an era where you've got, of course, you can't go without saying the Tiger effect and how that's added athleticism to the sport. But then also in how the fashion has shifted and the culture has made this more welcoming. It's not, go out there, be quiet. It's go out there, have a couple drinks with your friends, maybe shank some balls here and there. But at the end of the day, you have a good time, you've got a couple of drinks, and you look stylish doing it.

Just lastly before we go, yes, Dave. So did eventually get lucky. Rarely done an unboxing or anything like that. So I will just show them to you and to our viewers. This is literally the first time I'm opening this box. And there you go, Dave. So if I find another pair in your size, you got to let me know. And I will see if I can snag them for you, bud.

DAVID BRIGGS: Beautiful. Congrats, bro.