FirstCuts: 67 Starburys Or 1 Air Jordan

By Chris Littmann
Sports don’t start and end with a referee’s whistle. FirstCuts, a blog dedicated to sports culture, will cover everything outside the lines, from games to gear.
Exactly one week ago, a post in this same space decried the pricing at some stores for the limited Jordan XX3 release. In particular, I was critical of R. Sole, an upscale shop in St. Louis. The word I had was R. Sole would charge more than double MSRP -- $500 -- for this limited release that consisted of 23 pairs of shoes at 23 stores across the country.
Hours after posting the entry, we received a call from R. Sole manager Joe Wilson. He threatened to sue us over our “erroneous” report.
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Today was judgment day, with the Titanium XX3 Air Jordans dropping at select retailers across the country, and look what we came across. A customer, who wished to only be known by his first name and last initial (Mike P.) sent us this receipt copy from his purchase this morning. R. Sole held a raffle to determine what customers would have a chance to purchase the shoes. Now check out the price they were offered -- $500. Interesting.
A call has been placed to Jordan Brand for comment on today’s release and the variety of prices, but had not been returned at the time of this post.
And of course, I did call Joe Wilson once again today at R. Sole. He continued to insist the store had not received the shoes last week when our story went up and offered us no comment at this time.
We’re still gathering information on other locations from today’s release because it sounds like there was some funny business at one or two other stores. Those reports are unconfirmed. If you were at a participating retailer today, let us know how it went.↵