LeBron James was the most sought-after basketball player in the history of high school basketball. The 3 brands that were in the running for ‘The Chosen One’ were Nike, Adidas, and Reebok. His high school, St.Vincent-St.Mary was sponsored by Adidas but once their contract was up in early 2003, Nike jumped the gun. In the midst of it all, Reebok, who had snagged superstar talents like Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson, offered a mammoth $100,000,000 deal to Gloria James and her son. They would however, go in another direction that very same day.
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Nike pulled out all the stops to get LBJ’s undivided attention. In the weeks and days leading up to James being drafted in 2003, they would fly him out to Oregon to show him a presentation of what his future with Nike would look like. It was reported that the presentation cost upwards of $1,000,000. They even had Tinker Hatfield, the man responsible for some of the most iconic Air Jordan designs, give James a breakdown of what his first signature shoe could look like.
LeBron James declined Reebok’s 9 figure offer
May 17th-18th was around the time Nike flew LeBron James and his mother, Gloria, to Oregon for the presentation. It would be 3-4 days later that Reebok representatives would meet James in Akron, Ohio, his hometown, at a hotel to discuss the contract James would be signing if he went their way.
It was reported that the deal from Reebok was the richest of all the 3 deals with the $100,000,000 contract being filled with perks. The perks were worth millions of dollars and the reps would even hand Gloria and LeBron a check that presumably was used to lure them away from competitors.
The James family however, would not go for Reebok. Instead, they signed with Nike that very same night that they met with Reebok.
May 21: James and Goodwin meet with Reebok CEO Paul Fireman in an Akron hotel. But, later that night, James signs a seven-year, $100 million shoe and apparel deal with Nike, that includes a $10 million signing bonus- Excerpt from Darren Rowell’s 2003 ESPN story chronicling the journey James took from SVSM to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Signing with Nike was something LeBron still credits himself to this day. He’s now signed a lifetime deal with them and is set to release his 21st signature shoe model under Nike.
LeBron rejected Adidas as well
Sonny Vaccaro, the Nike rep who was instrumental in bringing Michael Jordan over to them, felt from the get-go that LeBron James was someone who would command millions of dollars from any brand he signed with. At the time, he was with Adidas.
According to Brian Windhorst, Vaccaro was there first in terms of building a relationship with the James family. However, LeBron didn’t lean too much in either direction and kept both Nike and Adidas guessing until the very last minute.
The offer that James rejected from Adidas was said to be around $115,000,000, which was close to what Reebok offered but with Reebok’s perks, they might’ve edged out Adidas in pure monetary value.
