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Who really said it

I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed

Not Jordan’s line — written for him by Jamie Barrett Jamie Barrett Advertising copywriter · wrote Nike’s “9,000 Shots” at Wieden + Kennedy, 1997
Genuinely spoken by Michael Jordan — genuinely not written by him. In copyright

Michael Jordan really did speak these words — they are his voice-over in Nike’s 30-second spot “9,000 Shots,” widely known as “Failure,” which the Paley Center’s television archive records as first aired on 30 April 1997. He did not compose them: the same catalog record credits Jamie Barrett — a Wieden + Kennedy copywriter, per Gale — as the spot’s writer, and Gale’s history of the campaign says Barrett wrote the script from his own knowledge of Jordan’s career and worked out the statistics in it himself.

Last verified 17 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed” Written by Jamie Barrett (Wieden + Kennedy) for Nike's "9,000 Shots" television commercial, first aired 30 April 1997; spoken by Michael Jordan in voice-over. — Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Michael Jordan. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Nike, Inc.; advertising copy created by Wieden + Kennedy). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Jamie Barrett — Wieden + Kennedy, then Goodby Silverstein · founder of barrettSF. Theme: "I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Nike, “9,000 Shots” (1997)

Work
Nike, “9,000 Shots” — widely known as “Failure”
First aired
30 April 1997 · 30-second television commercial
Written by
Jamie Barrett, copywriter, Wieden + Kennedy
Spoken by
Michael Jordan (voice-over) · directed by Mark Romanek

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot—and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. … And that is why I succeed. 30-second television spot

As transcribed in Gale’s Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns, which notes the final line arrives separately, over Jordan walking into the locker room. The wording that circulates online — and that Wikiquote carries, citing Nike Culture (1998), p. 49 — reads “over 9,000” and “26 times.” Both are transcriptions of the same script; we have not found a rights-cleared transcript from the broadcast itself to settle which is exact.

Television archive record
Paley Center for Media, catalog no. AT:49338.013
Gale, Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns — Nike, Inc.: 9,000 Shots

How we know

In copyright

This is 1997 advertising copy, written for Nike by its agency and first broadcast on 30 April 1997 — squarely within US copyright, with no plausible public-domain claim. The line is reproduced here in short form for identification, attribution and comment, which is the entire purpose of this page.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets it wrong

This is the most-quoted “Michael Jordan quote” in circulation, and almost nothing about the way it travels is quite right.

Michael Jordan Speaker, not writer

Quote sites file it as Jordan’s own reflection on his career. It is a 30-second Nike script. Gale’s Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns states that Wieden & Kennedy’s Jamie Barrett wrote the script for “9,000 Shots” from his personal knowledge of Michael Jordan’s career ↗, and the Paley Center’s archive record credits Barrett as the spot’s copywriter.

Jordan’s box scores Estimated, not counted

The numbers read like a career audit; they are a copywriter’s arithmetic. Gale reports that Barrett estimated the missed shots from Jordan’s career points and rough shooting percentage, and that because missed game-winners were not a tracked statistic he surmised about two a season ↗. Jordan, asked about the 26 at a press conference, said only that it sounded about right.

Quote aggregators Drifted text

Two transcriptions of the same script compete: Gale gives “more than 9,000 shots” and “Twenty-six times,” while the version that dominates online — the one Wikiquote carries — reads “over 9,000.” Others have rewritten it outright: PassItOn circulates “On 26 occasions I have been entrusted … And that’s precisely why I succeed” ↗, credited to Jordan with no source at all.

Wikiquote Sourced, but incomplete

Wikiquote does list the line in its sourced section rather than among misattributions — but it cites a 1998 academic book on Nike advertising ↗ instead of the commercial, and never says the sentence was written by an agency copywriter.

The sentiment is one Jordan defended in his own voice; the sentence is an advertisement, first broadcast on 30 April 1997 and credited on the television-archive record to copywriter Jamie Barrett ↗.

Context

Why the ad worked

Nike’s “9,000 Shots” ran 30 seconds and was shot over nine hours at Soldier Field in Chicago. A well-dressed Jordan steps out of a limousine and walks past banks of fans, nodding to the custodians and security workers along the way, while his voice-over quietly totals up everything he has got wrong — and only at the locker-room door does it turn the ledger over. Gale’s account of the campaign reports that of all the commercials Jordan made for Nike, this was the one he was proudest of, precisely because it made him look human.

Jordan told Henry Louis Gates Jr., for a profile published in The New Yorker on 1 June 1998, that the idea was “to tell young kids, ‘Don’t be afraid to fail’” — and he had fought the agency for the spot’s plain-spoken direction, telling them to “just show the actual situation.” It landed: USA Today voted it among the best campaigns of 1997 ↗, and it became the first foreign-produced commercial to take the grand prize at the All Japan CM Festival.

“I wrote a commercial using Michael Jordan’s words.” — Jamie Barrett, 2019

Where the numbers actually came from

Gale’s entry reports that Barrett worked the missed-shot figure out himself. He knew Jordan’s career points and approximate shooting percentage off the top of his head, applied simple arithmetic, and landed on roughly 8,000–9,000 misses — a guess that, when he researched it afterwards, “turned out to be on target.”

The “26 times” had no such backstop. Missed game-winners were not a recorded statistic, so — per the same entry — Barrett’s options were to watch every game of Jordan’s career or to surmise that he had failed to hit the game winner about twice a season. He surmised.

Asked about the figure by a reporter at a press conference a few days after the spot first aired, Jordan admitted he could not be sure, and answered: “It sounds about right to me.”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Failure Resilience Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Michael Jordan — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Carries this exact popular wording in its sourced Quotes section, cited to Goldman and Papson's Nike Culture (1998), p. 49 — but with no mention that it is advertising copy.
Gale: Nike, Inc. — 9,000 Shots campaignencyclopedia.com

The fullest published account of the spot: names Wieden & Kennedy's Jamie Barrett as the writer, transcribes the voice-over, and explains how he derived the 9,000 and the 26.
Paley Center catalog: Nike "9000 Shots"paleycenter.org

Television-archive record for the commercial itself — 1997, aired 30 April, director Mark Romanek, Jamie Barrett copywriter, Larry Frey art director.
Interview with Jamie Barrett (2019)piedmontexedra.com

Barrett names "9000 Shots" (1997) as the most meaningful commercial of his career and says he wrote it.
Nike Culture: The Sign of the Swoosharchive.org

Goldman and Papson's 1998 Sage study of Nike advertising — the book Wikiquote cites for the wording. Borrowable scan.
Michael Jordan — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the speaker: born 17 February 1963, Chicago Bulls 1984–1993 and 1995–1998, Washington Wizards 2001–2003, six NBA titles.

The man who actually wrote it

Jamie Barrett

Jamie Barrett

Advertising copywriter · Wieden + Kennedy, then Goodby Silverstein · founder of barrettSF

Jamie Barrett is an American advertising copywriter and creative director who, per Wikipedia, held creative leadership roles at Wieden + Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Fallon and Chiat Day before founding the San Francisco agency barrettSF, now Optimism BH, where he is chief creative officer. The Paley Center for Media’s archive record for Nike’s 1997 “9000 Shots” spot lists him as its copywriter, alongside art director Larry Frey and director Mark Romanek. In a 2019 local-press interview he called it the most meaningful commercial of his career — the credit, in a body of work that also includes ads for ESPN, the NBA and HBO.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Nike, “9,000 Shots” (1997)

Nike, Inc. “9,000 Shots” (television commercial, widely known as “Failure”). Written by Jamie Barrett, Wieden & Kennedy; art direction Larry Frey; directed by Mark Romanek; voice-over by Michael Jordan. First aired 30 April 1997. Paley Center for Media catalog no. AT:49338.013. Copy text as transcribed in William D. Baue, “Nike, Inc.: 9,000 Shots Campaign,” Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns (Gale). The exact wording quoted here follows Wikiquote, which cites Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson, Nike Culture: The Sign of the Swoosh (London: Sage, 1998), p. 49.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed’?” Last verified 17 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/ive-missed-over-9-000-shots-in-my-career-ive-lost-almost/

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