Yes you read that title correctly: LeBron’s deal will be worth above not millions but billions with a ‘b.’
Back in December of 2015 it was reported by ESPN’s Darren Rovell that LeBron James, Nike’s most popular signature athlete since Michael Jordan, signed a lifetime deal with the company who has represented him on and off the court since his rookie year. According to a ‘familiar source’ close to the deal from Rovell’s article, James’s Nike deal was “the largest single-athlete guarantee in company history.”
There was some no set number at the time when this deal was announced for how much James would be making from Nike. Some reports had it at north of $500 million.
Well Maverick Carter, James’s agent and the maestro behind the Nike deal, sat down with GQ recently and spoke about this groundbreaking deal.
via GQ
"So you just negotiated an unprecedented lifetime contract for LeBron with Nike. What’s your secret to being a great negotiator?You have to go into the room understanding a couple things. You have to know what you want. You have to know how to clearly articulate those things. You have to know what’s important to the other side and what they want. Be able to articulate those things, too. And then you have to be willing to not take everything. If you go into the negotiation like, I’m gonna get every dollar, every piece of real estate—I’m just gonna take this guy’s f*cking pants off—you may be able to do that once, maybe twice, but after that, people aren’t going to want to do business with you. When you’re negotiating something like the Nike deal, it’s gonna last a lifetime, literally. The minute this negotiation’s over, we’re gonna work with these people every day. So you don’t want to leave them with a bad feeling.How much was the deal for?I can’t say.Come on, Mav! Can you ballpark it?What are people saying?Kanye said a billion. So a billion.[Maverick smiles and points one finger skyward.]Holy sh*t.Yeah. It’s a fantastic deal. Nike feels great about the deal. That’s the most important thing. As great as I feel, as great as LeBron feels—Nike feels fantastic about it. It’s the largest deal in the history of the company. Their hope is he makes even more. And our hope is that, too, obviously."
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Well there you have it. One. Billion. Dollars.
LeBron has long been reported to want to be the “first billionaire athlete.” One way to get there is a Billion Dollar deal like this. Like many things, looks like LeBron is achieving his goals on and off the court.
It’s pretty cool as someone who has followed James throughout his NBA career and his growth through Nike to see him get rewarded with a deal like this. Nike took a shot with James before he was even drafted, signing him to a seven-year, $90 million, their largest athlete deal at the time, and now he’s a Nike athlete for life with a cool billion dollars in his back pocket.
A deal fit for a King if I could say so myself.
What do you guys think of the deal? Let us know below in the comments or tweet at us on Twitter @KJGCavaliers.