The Last Dance

Hi friends,

Welcome to the second edition of World Builders. I'm starting to send these 1x weekly as we cross 5k readers.

This one's focused on Michael Jordan's use of The Last Dance to further his claim as the GOAT to a new generation. Hope you enjoy.

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The Last Dance unearthed secret footage that Michael Jordan had deliberately kept in the dark for 20 years.

He held all the rights to the content. But then, when he sold, he only did so for $4 million, a steep discount to what the footage was worth.

• for a comp: Netflix bought jeen yuhs, the docuseries exploring the life of Kanye West, for $30 million

Which begs the question -- why'd MJ sell so cheap? And why now?

Let’s dig in:

Wilt Chamberlain averaged 30 points and 23 rebounds per game over a 14-year NBA career.

If you're not familiar with basketball, all you need to know is those stats are ridiculous. Best ever ridiculous.

But Wilt's never mentioned in the GOAT debate. Why?

Time and generational gaps.

That pesky time phenomena that affects Wilt was starting to affect MJ. The GOAT debate was trending toward LeBron... and I don't think MJ liked that.

the timing

The year is 2016. The Golden State Warriors are about to claim the title of best team in NBA history after a record-breaking 73-9 season and going up 3-1 in the Finals against LeBron James.

But something crazy happens: LeBron and the Cavs become the first team to come back from a 3-1 Finals deficit.

The sports world crowns LeBron as the best player of all time...

And a month later Michael Jordan officially gave the green light on The Last Dance, selling the content at a huge discount to a combination of Disney and Netflix.

That timing, at a minimum, is quite curious.

what does MJ know?

Michael Jordan is one of the best athletes turned business people in the world. He understands money, the importance of relevance, and storytelling.

MJ last played for the Chicago Bulls on June 14, 1998. Game 6. Everyone aged 31 or younger when The Last Dance came out was less than 10 years old.

He chose to sacrifice the money he could have made (not that $4 million is chump change, but you get the idea) from the footage to get the content in the hands of the two best storytelling companies on the planet.

He knew it was his path to stay relevant in the minds of the younger generations who had never seen him play. But looking for more than just relevance, MJ wanted to be viewed as the best basketball player ever by a generation that had never even seen him play.

He worked with Disney and Netflix to do that in 3 ways:

• Tell his entire story, from not making varsity in high school to winning a national title at UNC to dominating the NBA.

• Highlight the toughness of the NBA in the 80s and 90s, something that may be missing a bit today.

• Show his insanely competitive personality. Outside of Kobe and Tom Brady, we've never seen an athlete as intense as MJ. The inside look adds to his gravitas.

did it work?

I'd argue yes. As usual, let's look at the numbers to see what outcomes incredible storytelling actually drives.

For Disney / Netflix:

• Most-watched Disney documentary ever

• 5.6M viewers per episode (10 episodes) across Disney platforms within 1 week of launch

• 24M global viewers on Netflix in the first 4 weeks

• Over 11 million tweets mentioned The Last Dance in April 2020

ESPN

For Jordan:

• MJ collectibles skyrocketed in value, including an autographed pair of Air Force 1s that sold for a then-record $560,000 at Sotheby's

• The Jordan Brand saw a 38% increase in sales in May 2020

• Fanatics saw MJ merch sales rise 900% from April to June 2020

And eBay said it sold 500% more MJ items over that period than LeBron ones.

Sotheby's: The pair of Air Force 1's that sold for $560,000.

So yes, safe to say MJ accomplished his goal of staking his claim to the title of best player ever... even for a generation that never saw him play. That's the power of storytelling.

A message from... Me!

The interest in this tweet blew me away...

In my experience, there are two ways to get good at storytelling:

1. Study the greats (what this newsletter is for)

2. Practice, practice, practice

I do a lot of practice through StoryWork.

And so many of you liked, commented, and sent me DMs about the practice I decided to turn it into a guided course for you.

Check it out:

up your game

A few resources I found helpful this week, which you may too:

• Amanda Natividad writes a fantastic bi-weekly newsletter, The Menu, to help anyone up their content marketing game. It's dope and free.

• Li Jin studied 50+ brands crushing it on TikTok and put everything into a TT growth playbook. Wild stuff.

And if you're curious why The Last Dance performed so well, I wrote a thread on it covering everything from memes to the Disney / Netflix partnership:

- Nathan

what'd you think of today's newsletter?

• 🔥 Brought the heat

• 👍 Solid piece

• 🤦‍♂️ What tf was that