During the height of his NBA career, Shaquille O’Neal was everybody’s favorite player. Not only did he achieve great individual success, but he also contributed significantly to multiple NBA championship-winning teams. Quite notably, he was the catalyst for the most recent three-peat in NBA history. However, it was a conversation from an angry mother after a game, that changed the way he looked at the business side of things.
Advertisement
In the early stages of O’Neal’s prime, he walked down the typical path most stars take. After reaching a certain level of notoriety, sign with a sneaker deal and release a signature shoe. O’Neal reached that point with Reebok. In 1992, he released the Shaq Attaq, which was Reebok’s first signature shoe for an athlete.
The sneakers were doing quite well in sales, and all seemed to be good. However, one day, while O’Neal was leaving the Orlando Magic’s arena, he crossed paths with a mother who had stern words for the NBA star.
“This beautiful lady was dragging her son,” O’Neal revealed on The Big Podcast. “I thought she was coming for an autograph. And she starts saying, ‘You’re charging our babies for the shoes.’ You know how we’re raised, we’re not allowed to talk back to the sisters.”
O’Neal stood there and let that woman express her feelings toward him. However, once the exchange was over, he immediately rushed home to speak to his mother, Lucille. He expected her to have his back, but instead received a much-needed reality check.
“I’m thinking my mama is going to be on my side. She’s like, ‘Baby, the lady was right. Your shoes do cost too much.’ She’s like, ‘Remember, you ain’t never had no shoes that cost more than $40,'” O’Neal recalled.
Those words hit Shaq harder than any NBA player could. Once he finished his conversation with his mother, he knew he had to make a change. He called Reebok at once and informed the company he wasn’t going to renew their contract. This wasn’t an easy decision considering how much money was on the table.
“I called Reebok and said, ‘Hey, we’re not going to renew.’ I had $50 million on the table,” O’Neal revealed.
Although O’Neal didn’t know where to begin, he eventually settled on going independent, with Walmart being his main distributing partner. Fast forward to today, and the Shaq sneaker brand has sold over 470 million pairs of shoes.
The company now runs in the family as the Hall-of-Fame big man has passed down the company’s reins to his son Shareef. He is now the one responsible for the brand’s new shoe designs.
The impact O’Neal has made with his affordable sneaker line is massive, but it couldn’t have been possible without that one angry mother woman and his own mother speaking wisdom into his ears.
