Forty years ago today, the Chicago Bulls, somehow, got Michael Jordan with the No. 3 pick in the 1984 NBA Draft.
With Hakeem Olajuwon going No. 1 to Houston, the Trail Blazers, needing a center, took Kentucky's Sam Bowie second, which paved the way for Jordan to go to the Windy City.
And while Jordan would go on to revolutionize the NBA merchandise game, there was virtually no merchandise of the young star for Bulls fans to buy at the time.
In 1984, league licensing was barely developed. That year, there were seven different companies that were manufacturing NBA jerseys and none of them were making them for the public.
Rawlings made jerseys for 30 percent of the league (seven teams), including the clubs representing the top three picks in the draft (Houston, Portland and Chicago).
But Rawlings was a subsidiary of Figgie International, which owned 35 brands in 1984, and its executives had their eye on baseball, not basketball. More than half the brand’s revenue at the time came from baseball, thanks to being the sole supplier of major-league baseballs and a strong glove business.
Yes, the NBA had five years of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, but It took Nike's investing in Jordan and basketball for even the NBA to realize what was potentially there.
In March 1985, Air Jordans hit retail. It proved fans were willing to pay a whopping $65 ($190 in today's dollars) for an item endorsed by a sports star, something that had never happened before. And perhaps, more revolutionary to the jersey business, fans gobbled up Air Jordan clothing that came out that summer.
It was by watching Jordan that business-savvy NBA commissioner David Stern realized he had to do a complete league rights deal on uniforms and be able to sell to that manufacturer the rights to make jerseys for fans.
That breakthrough came in August 1986, when the league signed a deal with MacGregor-Sandknit to not only make the uniforms for the players, but for the fans, too.
“We feel that providing consumers with the opportunity to buy exactly what the NBA players wear on the court in games and during practice is an exciting new opportunity for fans and represents an important expansion of the NBA’s presence in the retail market," Stern said at the time.
MacGregor made authentic and replica versions, but the company did not have the infrastructure built out to deliver local team products to stores, which made jerseys more rare than they should have been. They also didn't have any promotional arm or advertising budget.
By 1988, however, a Jordan fan in New York could finally get a Jordan jersey through mail-order company Manny's Baseball Land.
By 1989, MacGregor was ready to admit it couldn't do the job, and the NBA went on to sign a deal with Champion, which already had reps with retail relationships in the marketplace, and the rest is history.
By June 1991, when Jordan and the Bulls won their first title, you could get a Bulls No. 23 at virtually any major sporting goods store in America.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.