Last year, Netflix released the Untold: The Rise and Fall of And1 documentary that looks at what happened to And1, a widely popular basketball brand based in Paoli that quickly found itself at the top of basketball culture before falling into relative obscurity, writes Ryan Mulligan for the Philadelphia Business Journal. 

The company was started by Jay Coen Gilbert — a Berwyn resident who now helms Imperative 21 — Seth Berger, and Tom Austin in 1993. It used aggressive marketing tactics that focused on “streetball” and its culture. The company started selling T-shirts that sported trash-talk phrases on them, made a deal with Foot Locker to sell them, and signed NBA star Stephon Marbury to be its first ambassador in 1996. 

With its “Mix Tape Series,” the company became internationally recognized. In 2001, And1 was second for basketball footwear with revenue of $285 million at the time. It also had a highly rated ESPN show and released a streetball video game. 

The company was acquired by California-based American Sporting Goods in 2003 before changing owners several more times over the following years. 

 Read more about And1 in the Philadelphia Business Journal. 

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in August 2022.