For the next eight years, BRS was a small but growing company of athletes selling shoes to athletes. “We’d have a base,” remembered Jeff Johnson, the first full-time employee, “which ranged from Knight’s basement to a couple of rooms behind a mortician’s place. The business was getting out to the tracks, to the locker rooms, showing the coaches and athletes our shoes, putting on clinics.” In touch with athletes, BRS found ways to innovate. A runner’s problem with cushioning during Boston’s annual marathon, for example, led to the development of the first midsole (see Appendix), which Tiger agreed to incorporate into several of its models. By 1972, BRS’s sales had reached $2
million.