Nope.

When I saw this spot, I loved it. Gorgeous shots. Nice suspenseful build. The flow is right, what it’s going for. All of it. Then I saw the creatives talking about what they said it was about and I felt a little disconnect.

Who knows better than them what’s in their head, right? I wasn’t there and all that. But their rational straight up doesn’t seem to match the spot I watched, nor does it seem to fit with what the athletes are saying relative to competing. The actual game may be a reward for the practices put in, but that feels like a stretch, and incidental to the idea I see.

It’s less about breaking down and more about motivating. If you’ve played any team sports or worked out on your own, it’s working hard and putting up with the anger of sport when things don’t go your way. It’s digging deep to make it through shitty practices, scrimmages and workouts when you don’t want to.

There’s something else about this spot too which the rest of Jordan’s Nike offshoot Jumpman brand suffers from. It’s probably a small thing, but they tend to make some emotional spots which are then ruined by the addition of motivational hyperbole at the end. The brand needs to learn from Big Brother Swoosh and just close with a simple silo of the logo. I got what this spot was about in :10 seconds without needing copy to tell me how I felt.