Michael Jordan's sneakers or the "Air Jordan" series are one of the most popular signature shoes of all time.

Many are wondering how it all started and according to a report by Business Insider, Nike founder Phil Knight made a gamble when the company signed the young Michael Jordan back in 1984.

In a related report by USA Today, Knight said that signing the rookie from North Carolina was the best decision he ever made. And that decision resulted into Nike growing to a $30 billion company.

KGW also reported that the partnership between the Swoosh Brand and His Airness has grown into the richest deal in sports marketing history. And regarding who's responsible for the success of the brand, Jordan himself just said, "It's a lot of people who think they created the success of the Jordan Brand, which is kind of ironic in some ways."

The talks started when many people are claiming responsibility for the success of the brand and among them are Nike executive George Raveling, former Nike basketball adviser Sonny Vacaro and Peter Moore.

In a documentary about Vacarro released this year, the former Nike adviser said that Nike only signed Jordan after he recommended it to do so.

Knight however, countered some of his claims and said, "The signing of Michael Jordan, yeah, success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan."

He further said, "A lot of people want to take credit for signing Michael Jordan, most obviously Sonny Vaccaro. On ESPN he said he was the key to the thing. Sonny helped, but he wasn't the MVP in that process."

But the question still remains, who really made Jordan sign with Nike? A question only he himself could answer. And according to the Chicago Sun Times, Jordan said, "Prior to all of that, Sonny (Vaccaro) likes to take the credit."

Jordan then said, "But it really wasn't Sonny, it was actually George Raveling. George Raveling was with me on the 1984 Olympics team (as an assistant coach under Bob Knight). He used to always try to talk to me, 'You gotta go Nike, you gotta go Nike. You've got to try.'"

And the rest is history.