FLOAT 100 · Sneakers · No. 16

Nike Mag 'Back to the Future' (2011, non-lacing charity edition)

Twenty-two years after Marty McFly wore them on screen, Nike finally built the shoes, lights and all but without the self-tying laces, and sold every pair for Parkinson's research in ten days.

Year: 2011
Maker: Nike
By price in sneakers: 19 of 100

Realized at auction · Sep 8, 2011$37,500A realized sale: somebody paid it.

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Unveiled: September 8, 2011, by Michael J. Fox on the Late Show with David Letterman
Maker: Nike; design led by Tinker Hatfield and Tiffany Beers
How many: 1,500 pairs at online auction, plus 10 pairs in presentation boxes sold at live auctions, 1,510 in all
How sold: Ten days of online charity auctions, September 8 to 18, 2011
Average price: $3,600 per pair, according to the Michael J. Fox Foundation
Raised: $4.7 million, doubled to $9.4 million by a matching challenge
What it has: Lit LED panel, electroluminescent NIKE strap and outsole, rechargeable battery
What it lacks: Self-tying laces
First pair: $37,500, bought by British rapper Tinie Tempah at the Los Angeles launch

The petition that would not go away

In Back to the Future Part II (1989), Marty McFly pulls on a pair of Nikes in a make-believe 2015 and the laces tighten by themselves. The shoe was a prop. Crew members pulled the strings through holes in the set, and Fox wore a battery pack to light it.

Fans kept asking for it anyway. More than 15 years after the film, in 2004 according to Sneaker Freaker, about 30,000 people had signed online petitions asking Nike to make a real one. Tinker Hatfield, who had designed the film shoe, said that seeing that many names convinced him Nike had to make it someday.

Hatfield gave the job to Tiffany Beers, a 25-year-old plastics engineer who had come to Nike from Rubbermaid. For three years she spent half her time on it. By 2007 she had a prototype with lights, but it had to stay plugged into a wall, and the project waited for the technology to catch up. Wikipedia and Sneaker Freaker describe roughly six years of work and about three restarts before the shoe was released.

Letterman, a 'Lost Episode' and ten days of bidding

Fox revealed the shoe on the Late Show with David Letterman on September 8, 2011. The same night the first pair was sold at a launch party in Los Angeles: Tinie Tempah, a British rapper and sneaker collector, bought it at live auction for $37,500. Nike also released a short 'Lost Episode' film starring Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown, which the foundation said had been viewed more than 2.9 million times on YouTube.

The 1,500 pairs were sold online in batches of 150 over ten days, closing on September 18. The foundation called it the largest charity auction in the history of the site that hosted it. On the first day, traffic to the foundation's website rose more than 1,300 percent over the same day a year earlier.

Ten more pairs, packed in presentation boxes, were sold at live auctions in cities from Paris to Tokyo. Lloyd gave his own pair back to the cause and signed the box, and it sold for $13,500 at a live auction at NikeTown New York on September 17.

The foundation reported $4.7 million raised, based on all final settled sales, with an average of $3,600 per pair. ABC News later put the average at $3,797. The Brin Wojcicki Challenge, a $50 million matching pledge from Google co-founder Sergey Brin and 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki, doubled the total to $9.4 million.

September 2011

The shoe arrived at the end of a turbulent year. The Arab Spring had brought down Egypt's Hosni Mubarak in February. An earthquake and tsunami had devastated eastern Japan in March. U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden in May, and South Sudan had become the world's newest country in July.

The auctions closed on September 18, the day after the Occupy Wall Street protests began in New York. In this one corner of the internet, people were bidding thousands of dollars on a sneaker from a 1989 comedy, and the money was going to research on the disease Fox had disclosed in 1998.

How to know one

The foundation said the 2011 MAG was an exact copy of the shoe Fox wore, 'down to the contours of the upper, the glowing LED panel and the electroluminescent NIKE in the strap.' It has an electroluminescent outsole and a rechargeable internal battery rated at 3,000 hours. Wikipedia describes it as the first rechargeable footwear Nike made.

It differs from the film shoe in two ways, according to a fan wiki: it adds foam support at the ankle and toe box for comfort, and it has no power laces. Nike said the shoe 'took inspiration from the film' and that the MAG is not meant for heavy activity.

A complete example offered at auction in London came with its packaging, an enamel pin badge, a paddle from the charity auction, a booklet and a custom display case. Some boxes carry signatures. Lloyd signed his, and a pair signed twice by Fox was offered at auction in July 2020 for the 35th anniversary of the first film.

From charity lots to collector's piece

Once the auctions closed, the 2011 MAG became a standard collector's piece. At an auction on Sunday, June 11, 2017, a 2011 pair sold for $8,125, while a self-lacing 2016 pair in the same sale brought $52,500. In July 2019 a 2011 pair was one of two MAGs in a 100-pair sneaker sale in New York. During the week-long auction, 99 of the 100 pairs, the MAGs among them, went to one buyer for $850,000 in all, so no separate price for the 2011 pair was given.

According to Sneaker Freaker, the most recent 2011 pair to sell on a major resale marketplace went for $20,562 in 2023. Wikipedia cites online resale prices from $10,600 to $15,900 as of 2021.

The 2011 run also set the pattern for what followed. When the self-lacing version came in 2016, it too was sold to raise money for the foundation.

The car ride that led to power laces

Beers remembered leaving the 2011 launch event in a car with Nike chief executive Mark Parker. 'That was great,' he told her. 'How long is it going to take to make them with auto-laces?' That conversation led to the self-lacing MAG handed to Fox on October 21, 2015, the 89-pair 2016 release and the HyperAdapt 1.0 in December 2016.

The work on the MAG also fed other products. Beers said the shoe's foam exterior was used on a Jordan model, and what the team learned about batteries led to lighted snowboard boots in 2013 and heated boots for athletes. Parker later said the MAG 'sent us down an uncharted path of innovation, but it also opened our eyes to our ability to fight some of the world's biggest challenges.'

The numbers

Release date: September 8, 2011 (auctions closed September 18)
Retail price: None; sold only at charity auction
Production: 1,500 pairs online plus 10 at live auctions, 1,510 total
Average sale: $3,600 per pair (foundation); ABC News reported $3,797
Raised: $4.7 million, matched to $9.4 million
Battery: Rechargeable, rated at 3,000 hours

Timeline

Nov 22, 1989
Back to the Future Part II opens with Marty's self-lacing Nikes on screen.
2004
About 30,000 fans have signed online petitions asking Nike to make the shoe.
2007
Tiffany Beers has a lit MAG prototype that has to stay plugged into a wall.
Sep 8, 2011
Michael J. Fox unveils the 2011 MAG on the Late Show; Tinie Tempah buys the first pair for $37,500 in Los Angeles; the online auctions open.
Sep 17, 2011
Christopher Lloyd's signed pair sells for $13,500 at NikeTown New York.
Sep 18, 2011
The ten days of online auctions close.
Sep 2011
The foundation reports $4.7 million raised, doubled to $9.4 million by the Brin Wojcicki Challenge.
Oct 21, 2015
Nike gives Fox the first working self-lacing MAG.
Oct 4, 2016
The self-lacing 2016 MAG goes to an 89-pair charity draw.
Jun 11, 2017
A 2011 pair sells for $8,125 at auction, in the same sale as a $52,500 2016 pair.
Jul 2019
A 2011 pair is included in a 100-pair sneaker sale in New York; 99 of the 100 pairs go to a single buyer.
Jul 2020
A 2011 pair signed twice by Fox is offered at auction with no reserve for the 35th anniversary of Back to the Future.
2023
A 2011 pair resells for $20,562.

The world in 2011

Feb 11, 2011
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns after mass protests during the Arab Spring.
Mar 11, 2011
An earthquake and tsunami devastate eastern Japan.
Apr 29, 2011
An estimated two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.
May 2, 2011
U.S. Navy SEALs kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
Jul 9, 2011
South Sudan becomes independent from Sudan.
Sep 17, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street protests begin in New York.

Price record

$1,000$10,000$100,000

Date	Price	Kind
Sep 8, 2011	$37,500	Sold at auctionThe first pair, bought by Tinie Tempah at a live charity auction at the Los Angeles launch party.
Sep 17, 2011	$13,500	Sold at auctionChristopher Lloyd's own pair with a signed box, live charity auction at NikeTown New York.
Jun 11, 2017	$8,125	Sold at auctionA 2011 pair sold in the same sale as a $52,500 2016 pair.
2023	$20,562	Private saleMost recent 2011 pair sold on a major resale marketplace, as of the source.

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Nike Mag 'Back to the Future' (2011, non-lacing charity edition) is number 19 of 100 in the sneakers entries of the FLOAT 100. 22 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (16 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

The 2011 MAG was the first rechargeable footwear Nike made.
Pairs were released online 150 at a time over ten days.
Christopher Lloyd donated his own pair back to the auction and signed the box.
Traffic to the foundation's website rose more than 1,300 percent on the first day of the auction.
The project was restarted about three times over roughly six years.
Nike's chief executive asked about auto-laces in the car leaving the launch event.

How this page is made

The figure: One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
Realized or not: A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
The story: Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
Archive: Oct 5, 2026