Michael Jordan was arguably the most marketable figure in sports and in pop culture during the 1990s.

From his shoe partnership with Nike to another sponsorship with Gatorade, Jordan's face could be seen everywhere as the Chicago Bulls ascended to the top of the basketball world and he became the GOAT.

Michael Jordan's image consists of some of the most famous commercials of all time. One of the most iconic commercials was Gatorade's “Be Like Mike” campaign immediately after they signed Jordan in the summer of 1991.

However, the iconic jingle in the ad might not have been had it not been for Disney overcharging for the use of a song from “The Jungle Book,” per Darren Rovell:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_KslpGDd4F/?igshid=vfy9hx3xcv59

In his post, Rovell wrote:

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Bernie Pitzel, the creative chief of Gatorade’s advertising firm, Bayer Bess Vanderwarker, wanted to use the song “I wanna be like you” from Disney’s Jungle Book, after all everyone wanted to be like MJ. But Disney wanted $350,000 for the song and that was only for a five-week run. So Pitzel’s goal was to come as close to the Jungle Book lyrics without infringing on it and getting a fat lawsuit from Disney. In four hours on a cocktail napkin at his favorite in Chicago, Pitzel wrote “Be Like Mike.” Jordan hadn’t really been called Mike Jordan since college, but Michael just didn’t fit. Jingle writers Ira Antelis and Steve Shafer put the lyrics to song in 48 hours. The ad, which features Pitzel’s 13-year-old son Nathan trying to put the ball behind his back, was a huge success. Pitzel told me: “If we had used the music from The Jungle Book, the advertisement would have been forgotten. Instead, we generated a piece of music that we could own that the world could identify with Gatorade.”

Connecting with kids was often a key element to Michael Jordan ads, as was the case with the “Let Your Game Speak” campaign:

It made sense for Gatorade to want to use a tune that would resonate with younger children, but it seems they lucked out by having to pivot from “I Wan'na Be Like You” to an original song for this Michael Jordan ad.