I've just heard the news that Lebron James has signed a lifetime sponsorship deal with Nike, which basically takes him beyond the end of his playing career. He may be 31 years old and coming into his twilight years but I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to how much it will cost Nike. There's talk that it will be more than the $300m 10-year contract that Nike signed with Kevin Durant. They're clearly looking for the new Michael Jordan and his footwear franchise. All I know is that's a lot of shoes he's going to have to be selling in the future.
I think Nike just made a big mistake. When Lebron James retires and what he has achieved so far is eclipsed by a younger player, he'll be earning some free cash from Nike even though his endorsement would hardly be making too much of a difference. Lifetime deal? I wonder if there's some clause that re-defines "life-time" . . .
I think the deal with LeBron as been on the horizon for some time now, and while I'm not a huge basketball fan, even I have heard of him and know what he's achieved in the game, from all the way over here in the UK. I'm not saying he's anywhere near as good as Michael Jordon, I don't know enough about the sport but what I will say is that his NAME is as big, and that's all that matters to Nike.
If he can get such a company to pay him a ridiculous salary more or less for life just to use his name, more power to him. But my guess is that Nike is probably paying him more money than they should from a business owner point of view. Hopefully they were smart enough to attach plenty of strings - such as a morals clause and other things on his end he'd need to do to earn the money and be a good representative of the company.
This is so far outside our expertise that I don´t even know how to comment on it. 20 years ago I would have said the same thing about MJ, but I think anyone would agree that MJ helped Nike dominate. I am not a fan of LeBron, he is no MJ who put teams on his back during championship games. Most of the time, LeBron is the second or third best player on the court when he won championships and was not the one winning the games. I can still picture MJ breaking that guys ankles on that cross-over jumper at the buzzer against Utah. LeBron is a stats guy, not a hero guy.
The great ones will live long... long after the new young good guys start being stars. And on top of things these influential players often seem to stay with their sport even after they retire, whether it's coaching, television commentary or something similar. Now I'm not too familiar with basketball so I really don't know if Lebron will be one of those guys but Nike seems to be betting on it.
Well, I mean Michael Jordan and his sneakers..similar deal. I think Air Jordan's are still popular, and Jordan retired long ago. So, this is one of the things that sneaker companies feel practiced in doing. The Le Bron James deal does not surprise me one bit. I think those endorsed sneakers have a long way to go to beat Air Jordans though.
