AND1

In The Rise and Fall of AND1, the latest installment in Netflix's UNTOLD series of sports documentaries, we follow the meteoric arc of the iconic...

It’s clear there are still some resentments harbored by the players–and perhaps rightly so–but to a man, they all still seem genuinely grateful to have had the experience. Acting on an idea from DJ Set Free, the brand released the first AND1 mixtape–a VHS tape of Rucker Park highlights set to unreleased hip-hop tracks that the brand pressed tens of thousands of copies of and distributed for free to shoe stores, barbershops and locations all over the city. Threatened by the upstart, apparel goliath Nike would soon have AND1 in the crosshairs, and would co-opt the brand’s edgy image with their own “Streetball” campaign. There was no stopping AND1–the tour led to an ESPN reality show, an arena tour and international swing, major sponsorships and even a video game. For a brief period at the turn of the millennium, the hottest thing in basketball wasn’t in the NBA, and it wasn’t Nike. In 1999, Michael Jordan was retiring, the NBA was locked out, and they had an opening. It looked like AND1’s plans on world domination might be dead before they even got off the ground, and the brand was forced to regroup. Within a year, AND1 merchandise was selling like crazy, and the founders decided to take on Nike–launching a signature shoe and signing the NBA’s #4 draft pick, Stephon Marbury, to a ten-year endorsement deal. There hasn’t been a dud yet, and it’s certainly not The Rise and Fall of AND1 that’s breaking that streak. And that’s when I started to understand this is the essence of who we are. They offer the insider perspective this documentary needs, and demonstrate the heart and soul behind the brand’s success. In Netflix’s UNTOLD: The Rise and Fall of AND1, we see how trash-talk built a shooting star of an empire, and how it fell as quickly as it rose.

The latest iteration of the "Untold" documentaries brings to focus the American basketball apparel brand AND1, which almost became synonymous with street.

Not only did it give the signed athletes the opportunity to see the world and live the life of stardom, albeit on a smaller scale than usual for NBA stars, but it also inspired many others like them to express themselves through the sport they love the most. Although the Nike Freestyle range was launched in 2001, AND1’s fall in popularity did not take place until four or five years later, and it was not just bigger competition that drove them out of the market. In 2003, ESPN approached AND1 for a reality TV show based around their next Mixtape tour, and together they came up with what was essentially a talent-hunt show to find the next streetball star to appear on AND1’s team. Although AND1 had been in this specific part of the market, the introduction of a multi-billion dollar, hugely trusted company like Nike had a considerable negative impact on sales. His mental health took a toll as well, when one day, he just got tired of everything and informed Seth and Jay that he was leaving the company. There was a gradual belief growing among the streetball players enrolled under AND1 that the company was mostly making money out of their hard work and not giving them enough money in return. 2, and capitalizing on these demands, AND1 came up with the idea of the AND1 Mixtape Tour, which was essentially a tour of exhibition games. The first product in this new range was a slip-on shoe named the Post-Game, and then they launched a pair of different-looking shoes called Tai Chi. Sales dipped, and more importantly, the project to take themselves to the level of the NBA failed. Next, the company wanted to follow in the footsteps of Nike, which was undoubtedly the biggest player in the basketball apparel market, and decided to sign deals with an NBA star themselves. The latest iteration of the “Untold” documentaries brings to focus the American basketball apparel brand AND1, which almost became synonymous with street basketball during the early 2000s. Basketball served a major part of his life as a sport that he actively followed as well as spent time with, and thinking about basketball the whole day every day was self-admittedly his dream life.

The two original co-founders were Seth Berger and Jay Coen Gilbert, but things took a turn when Tom Austin was brought on board. Together, the three came up ...

Austin's biggest contribution to the growth of the brand was with their signature shoes. Along with logging long hours to grow the company, Tom Austin had multiple ideas that led to AND1 taking off the way it did. While all three co-founders played a part in the company's success, Tom Austin was a key piece to the company.

Seth Berger is one of the co-founders and former CEO of the American footwear and clothing company AND1. He is currently the managing director of the Sixers ...

Other aspects of AND1's downfall included disgruntled player-company relations, with players openly feuding and calling out AND1 for the obscurity around their paychecks. For starters, Nike, AND1's primary competitor, already held a massive chunk of the market share. He is currently the managing director of the He earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business in 1993. It was then that they started flouting the norms of an apparel company. [Stephon Marbury](https://www.sportskeeda.com/player/stephon-marbury), hoping to make it big in the sneaker business, but later shifted its focus to a market not yet capitalized on by its competitors, streetball.

Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, the company AND1 came along and tried to shake up the basketball landscape.

Just before he signed a deal with Nike, he won the dunk contest wearing their shoes. What the company clung to the most was how different its brand was. With their own line of clothing and sneakers, they set out to provide a different experience to that of the NBA. Instead of making their own mixtape, Nike ran a commercial on TV with a similar style. Aside from selling t-shirts, the products that got them on the map initially were basketball mixtapes. At their peak, they were seen as a close rival or even better than the iconic sports brand.

Stephon Marbury was affiliated with AND1 during the early stages of his NBA career. Founded in 1993, AND1 needed a young talented player to promote the ...

The point guard spent 13 years in the NBA and played for six teams. Unfortunately, the young NBA star sued AND1 for compensation and royalties in June 1998. Stephon Marbury launched his own line of basketball shoes in 2006. Founded in 1993, AND1 needed a young talented player to promote the company, and Marbury was perfect for it. This partnership started the AND1 Mixtape Tour, which achieved a lot of success, both in the United States and internationally. Renamed “The Coney Island Classic,” the sneakers returned in three different colors at a retail price of $90.

Untold: The Rise and Fall of AND1 is a Netflix documentary that shows how streetball became as successful as NBA. But what went wrong, leading to its ...

And in a very short amount of time, these players and the company became as popular as NBA and Nike respectively. And at the right moment, they took the decision to form a team of local streetballers and distribute their game as mix-tapes. How they connected with the underground artform of streetball and ended up flipping the billion-dollar basketball industry on its head. This documentary traces the journey of how three young friends with a dream of bringing greater acclaim to the game they loved. The film has a runtime of about 1 hour and 9 minutes. The Rise and Fall of AND1 is a rags-to-riches tale of a scrappy company transforming streetball into a phenomenon.

The greatest basketball brand in the world came from the NBA, and it wasn't Nike. It was an innovative company that introduced streetball to the masses, ...

Nike would soon have AND1 in the crosshairs, and would co-opt the brands edgy image with their own Streetball campaign. The founders viewed video of streetballers practicing at New York City's Rucker Park and realized there was a new market beyond the NBA, and one that was a fortuitously-timed one. It appeared like AND1s plans on world dominance might be dead before they even started, and the brand was forced to regroup. was an instant hit, and the founders decided to partner with Nike, launching a signature shoe and signing NBAs #4 draft pick, Stephon Marbury, to a ten-year endorsement deal. The greatest basketball brand in the world came from the NBA, and it wasn't Nike. No dud yet, and it certainly isn't THERE BEFORE THE ISSUES OF AND1.

Three college graduates, Seth Berger, Tom Austin and Jay Coen Gilbert, were the founders of AND1, the brand from Netflix's new documentary.

Netflix released Untold: The Rise and Fall of AND1 on Tuesday, August 23. The AND1 founder has had this role for 15 years and his teams have won the league title on nine occasions. [Another fan tweeted:](https://mobile.twitter.com/SpoonOfZeke/status/1562192296338419718) “Yooo… [said another](https://mobile.twitter.com/RevErskineGH/status/1562233727509487617). He is also a former Forbes contributor. The brand became ultra popular for featuring famous basketball and streetball trash talk slogans on t-shirts, like “Pass.

The latest Untold documentary does a fine job of merging sports, pop culture and artistic expression.

AND1 was symbolic of a limitlessness that lay between amateur and professional sport, between picking up a skill and being consumed by it. They spread joy and wonder with their moves, leaving viewers marveling at how they handled the ball and rather than how much they scored with it. As someone completely oblivious of AND1 and its legacy in my formative (South Asian) years, I was hooked by the sheer audacity of the brand to be all idealistic and creative in the face of its multi-billion dollar rivals. Or was it burnout for one of the founders? Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the end of AND1 somewhat coincided with the demise of Brazil as a global footballing giant. The documentary could have done a slightly better job of exploring the chronology of the downfall instead of presenting multiple reasons at once: Was it Nike co-opting the streetball movement? As a viewer and long-time sports nut, it really is quite a rush to, first of all, recognize the existence of this retro era, and secondly, realize that imagination was once the currency of success. We also see the fans who deflect from the exclusive Nikes and NBAs of America to reclaim the sultry soul of the game they love: packed stadiums, pandemonium for their local post-Jordan heroes, the AND1 Mixtape tour, the glorified exhibition games. AND1 was an underdog sports brand that came from nowhere to challenge the Goliath-sized likes of Nike, filling the void between pro-basketball and artistic expression before getting consumed by its own freestyle ambition. We see the hoop stars of this touring bandwagon – streetball legends like Hot Sauce, The Professor, Shane the Dribbling Machine, Skip 2 My Lou – living out their childhood dreams in an alternate language after being rejected by the big-boy leagues. By the end, there are no heroes and villains. There are just victors and victims of time.