I’ve been digging into the NBA sponsorship scene lately, and let me tell you, it’s a wild world out there. Today, I wanted to focus on Adidas and the players they’ve got on their roster. You know, Adidas used to be huge in the NBA, even bigger than now. They had the legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar back in the day, who was their first big name.
So, I started by hitting up this site called “NBA Shoes Database” – yeah, there’s a database for everything these days. Anyway, I found a whole section on Adidas and the kicks their players are wearing this season. Turns out, they’ve got about 50 or so players right now, which is way down from their peak of around 80.
I clicked around and saw that the most popular shoe is the “adizero Select 2.0”, with 14 guys rocking it. After that is the “D.O.N. Issue 6”, worn by 6 players. Then there is the “Harden Vol. 8” and “Dame 9”, and a bunch of other models, I guess.
- adizero Select 2.0 (14 players)
- D.O.N. Issue 6 (6 players)
- Harden Vol. 8 (5 players)
- Dame 9 (I didn’t count these)
- …and a bunch more!
Then I started thinking about the actual players. I knew Damian Lillard was with Adidas, he’s a big deal. Eight-time All-Star, top 75 players of all time. I read somewhere that he is one of the top earners in the NBA, crazy money.
I wanted to know what these guys are making, so I did some more digging. Turns out, the biggest earner in the whole league is LeBron James, pulling in like 48.7 million in salary and a whopping 80 million in endorsements, but he’s not an Adidas guy. He is with Nike as far as I know.
While I was looking at all this, I stumbled upon an article about Jordan Brand’s new rookie class. That’s a whole other story. They’ve got some new players like Stephon Castle from the Spurs and Dalton Knecht from the Lakers. Looks like these young guys are starting to make their mark.
So, that’s where my little research journey ended today. It’s fascinating to see how these brands are battling it out in the NBA, and how much money is involved. Also, it is surprising that the number of Adidas NBA players decreased from 80 to about 50 now. I just wanted to share my findings with you all. Hope you found it as interesting as I did!
