Today, we are used to seeing the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, LeBron James, and other premier athletes sign some jaw-dropping deals. However, it was NBA legend Michael Jordan who revolutionized the way brands sign celebrities nowadays. Back in 1984, when Converse and Adidas dominated the basketball market, MJ took a gamble and signed a monumental deal with the up-and-coming brand Nike, which promised him $2.5 million over five years alongside royalty from retail sales of Air Jordans. However, long before Nike became a top sports shoe brand in the basketball realm, they offered another basketball superstar a 10% equity stake in the company, which would be worth an estimated $2.8 billion today. As shocking as it seems, the player happily accepted the $100,000 cash option that Nike offered him instead.
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In 1984, Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro offered Michael Jordan a deal too good for the basketball star to turn down. Apart from paying the 6-feet-6 Shooting Guard $500,000/year for five years, Nike also offered MJ a percentage of the revenue as royalty from each sale of the Jordan Brand. Today, His Airness is still the recipient of 5% of Nike’s yearly revenue from the Jordan brand sales. In 2022 alone, Jordan was reportedly paid $256 million by the leading footwear company.
Spencer Haywood missed out on a deal that could’ve been worth $2.8 billion
Spencer Haywood was one of the NBA’s most exciting prospects in the early 1970s. The 6-feet-8 Forward played for the Seattle SuperSonics in the initial years of his career. This was around the same time that Phil Knight approached the NBA superstar with a deal of a lifetime. Haywood was given two options in return for a Nike promotion. The first – $100,000 in cash. The second – 10% equity stake in Nike.
At that time, Nike was nowhere close to being a legitimate threat to the likes of Converse and Adidas. Unsurprisingly, Haywood and his agent decided to select the safer option at the time – $100,000 in cash. As seen in Frank Michael Smith’s tweet, rejecting the 10% equity stake was a decision that the former Lakers star would probably regret now, because it is currently worth an estimated $2.8 billion.
Of course, one cannot blame Haywood. He had no way of foreseeing Nike’s meteoric rise back then.
Following Nike’s success with Michael Jordan, a barrage of NBA superstars have signed with the company
Michael Jordan is the major reason behind Nike’s success. With Nike’s emergence in the late 1980s, several superstars decided to follow in Jordan’s footsteps and sign with the company. Kobe Bryant, Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, and Jason Kidd, among a few other big names associated themselves with the brand in the 1990s and 2000s.
In today’s league, apart from LeBron James and Kevin Durant signing lifetime deals, the likes of Paul George, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ja Morant, and Devin Booker have received their own signature shoes with Nike.
