Nike launches new Jordan sneakers inspired by female basketball athletes

Nike is enhancing its basketball offering for women players with the launch of the Jordan Heir Series sneakers, a silhouette that draws insights from the women’s game and is built to support women on the court.

In a statement, the Jordan Brand said the Heir Series ushers in a “new era of basketball performance and style,” for women, taking direction from athletes including Kiki Rice and Kiyomi McMiller, two of the first athletes to score Name, Image and Likeness deals with Nike.

The Heir Series is the lowest shoe in Jordan Brand’s basketball lineup and has been designed to enable the kind of running and cutting that’s central to women’s basketball and now ranks as the top priority for a growing number of all hoopers.

Rhyne Howard, a Jordan Brand athlete and Atlanta Dream guard, said: "We’re currently witnessing a pivotal and transformative era for sports, especially women’s sports. This shoe allows us to leverage our understanding of how women play to create products that can benefit all athletes and push the entire sport landscape forward.”

Based on feedback from many of the 15 women athletes in the Jordan Brand family, the Heir Series features an exterior layer of foam that protects a drop-in Cushlon 3.0 midsole, which allows the foot to be as low to the ground as possible to drive a flexible court feel for running and cutting.

In addition, a rubber herringbone traction pattern adds to that court feel to enable quickness and control, while an adaptive, flexible cage, drives support and comfort while preventing ankle rolling, the most common injury among women hoopers.

To further spotlight the women’s game, the sneakers come in “bold and energic colourways,” with bright, standout markings and an abstract animal print, which fuses the favourite colours of each female athlete on the Jordan Brand family roster.

The Jordan Heir series “builds on Jordan Brand’s legacy of innovating with the female basketball player at the forefront, beginning with the 1998 release of the women’s Air Jordan OG — the first model creative exclusively for women,” adds Nike.