Agent had Spencer Haywood turn down 10 percent ownership stake in Nike

Agent had Spencer Haywood turn down 10 percent ownership stake in Nike, LeBron James aloft a few eyebrows in backward 2015 if he active a lifetime endorsement accord with Nike that was reportedly admired at added than $500 million. But that's annihilation compared to the action basketball Hall of Famer Spencer Haywood claims he anesthetized up from the accoutrement aggregation during his 14-year career as a pro.

According to ClickOnDetroit.com, the Detroit built-in Haywood, who already sued the NBA to accretion aboriginal access into the alliance afterwards authoritative his NBA admission with the Seattle SuperSonics at age 21, was approached by Nike aboriginal in his career with an adorable offer: Either $100,000 or 10 percent of the aggregation in barter for announcement the company's shoes.

In 2016, such a hypothesis would be a no-brainer, but at the time, Nike was almost unknown, accepting launched as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964, alone to become Nike Inc. in 1971. So at the admonition of his agent, Haywood took the banknote rather than partnering with Phil Knight & Co.

The accord concluded up alive out able-bodied for Nike, as Haywood, a gold advocate in the 1968 Olympics, became one of the greatest assiduously in NBA history and won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1980. However it didn't about-face out as able-bodied as it could accept for Haywood, whose 10 percent pale in Nike would be account about about $8.6 billion today.

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