The Rise and Fall of AND1

Good movie!

source: Untold: The Rise and Fall of AND1

This is an excellent documentary that covers not only the passion for an underground form of a popular sport, but also how that passion can fuel a business. It also shows what can happen when David takes on Goliath, but Goliath starts slinging stones too. I never watch basketball or many sports for that matter, but this film does a great job of conveying a this company's/team's love for their sport; one can't help but get fired up. The people are memorable and the underdog story makes you want them to win. I was in Walmart last week looking for some playground shoes for my kids and ended up getting a pair of And1s for my daughter. At the register, I was thinking "weren't these only sold at places like FootLocker?" I have also been watching the Professor's videos on YouTube when they fall into my feed over the years, and always wondered why he wasn't playing in the pro leagues. Now it makes sense, but it is still saddening to see how a company with a strong inner culture and customer following can get uprooted. I'm glad these guys got a chance to tell their story and I was happy to listen. After all, isn't that what we all want?

The story of AND1, as a brand, doesn't carry nearly as much pulp as the rest of the entries in the Untold series and ends up being one of its less memorable entries. Netflix interviews the right people, and the rise of the street-ball brand is one that's incredible to see and learn more about. I remember playing the Gameloft version of AND1 Streetball on the mobile many years ago and that was pretty much my entire exposure to the brand, as someone who grew up in a country where basketball was always synonymous with the NBA. It was fun getting to know the backstories of some of the AND1 legends, and the narration is solid. However, the fall of the brand is barely touched upon. It seems like they were in a haste to conclude and failed to get the complete story across. Yes, Nike literally swallowed their market share with the Freestyle campaigns and yes, the players at AND1 weren't treated right. But they could have split the documentary into two episodes (instead of one), and dug deeper into the smaller, lesser-known details.

I feel like this could have been another 20 to 30 minutes longer. The backstory was really really good and I enjoyed the first hour of it. But there's such a small portion dedicated to this documentary of why and one really fell. We see multiple views, and at the same time some obvious answers yet they were never really expound it on. When I watch this, I realized how important a figure to the company Tom was. When Tom said he was out, it says, though and 1 came to an end. And 1, as a company, overall was a house of cards or this case one person. The story overall is inspiring. They literally started with nothing, had an idea, and went out and achieved it. Even with a major flop by signing Steph Marbury. But the organization lacked just that, organization.

The Rise and Fall of And1 is a solid watch, it's more so the rise, than the fall. The one of the three co-founders doing all the work got ill, so they immediately sold the company before it would collapse. That's what I got from it. I suppose the players may have been exploited to an extent, as they hadn't an alternative. I use to enjoy And1 for its electric play and music. I never understood the love for Hot Sauce though, why bother guarding someone who's not a scoring threat. People would dribble and go nowhere like him. Yeah that's great, hurry up already. I didn't know about the Marbury getting injured thing though, that's crazy.

This episode was great! I love And1 and it's great to see some love for street ball and players like The Professor and Hot Sauce of course. The doc had a ton of behind the scenes footage to go along with every moments which was great. Only con is that it felt different than other Untold episodes because it was about a business and not a team or player, but I don't think that matters a whole lot. I also thought some of the music choice was too loud and annoying at times but besides that it was enjoyable. The big take away is that money is everything when you're battling two fronts, the NBA and Nike. And1 was a once in a lifetime brand that helped shape the fashion industry, inspire young ballers, and showed the world the magic of street ball. It's great to see the story finally told.

So growing up over the 90's, I was in the camp of what "What happened to AND1" from my basketball days when I was a kid. This film highlighted a good, tight story of the rise of the brand and the celebration of Streetball and Hip Hop, but it didn't really cover the decline of the brand. It was like "Nike stole our market share. The end." with no real insight to what happened. It's like the producers just went off the word of the owner of the brand and didn't do any deeper analysis, even though the owners seemed scared of the Nike brand and didn't want to compete at all which was why they sold and cashed out. The sliminess of underpaying the performers/streetballers was a little unnerving, seeing AND1 execs cashed out while giving them nothing was sort of predatory, especially seeing they knew the brand was on the decline but not bankrupt by any means.

Not as salacious or interesting of an episode as the untold series had been so far. The company didn't really fail and no one was done egregiously dirty. Mostly just mixed emotions. Still fun to see the frenzy that was streetball in the early 2000s.

A group of privileged ambitious men looking only for self enrichment exploit the talent of oppressed minorities, hyping their basketball style without returning any earnings to the communities where they developed their skills.