Is a sneaker contract that important?

Normally, we think of NBA players as earning their majority of money from their teams, but players like James make a lot more money from Nike than he does from the Cavaliers.

The first is the brand effect of sneakers. When a rookie signs a shoe contract, their performance is ranked within the company, and as their performance improves, so does their position in the rankings, and ultimately their performance translates into more business opportunities, which intuitively means that fans will be more willing to wear the shoes they endorse.

Brand value is an important part of the NBA, and sneakers play a very important role in it. Since the shoe contract is also a very important part of a player's career, the choice of which sports brand has become a very important concern.

Finally, let's take a look at which companies are the top rookies signed into?

Markle Fultz: Nike;

Lonzo Bauer: BBB;

Jayson Tatum: Nike;

Josh Jackson: Under Armour;

Daron Fox: Nike;

Jonathan Isaac: Nike

Once again, the new season of the CBA has been noisy because of the sneaker problem, and this time, the stars, brands, basketball associations, and leagues seem to have failed to benefit from it. What is the root cause of this? What can we learn from the NBA?

"The Sword Comes"

Things have to start with the 004-05 season, that year, Anta became the CBA's only designated equipment sponsor (the first contract was 60 million per year, and then the contract was renewed for 5 years, with an annual sponsorship fee of about 40 million), in addition to the rights and interests of the players' clothes, Anta also obtained the rights and interests of the shoes under their feet, in principle, all domestic players must wear Anta shoes to play - foreign aid is not restricted by this rule, and wearing other brands of sneakers only needs to affix the trademark, This tradition has continued in the course of subsequent regulatory changes.

Because of the implementation of the new regulations, the Basketball Association introduced a buffer policy when implementing it, so that every sneaker brand other than Anta will have five places to wear competing products every season, and the brand only needs to pay 100,000 yuan in compensation for each place. Nike later became the designated supplier of balls for the CBA, and the number of places was increased to one.

This policy also caused widespread controversy at the time, but after all, there was room for buffer operation, and the CBA at that time was far less influential than it is today, so it did not cause a sensation.

In the 01-1 season, Li Ning became the new equipment sponsor of the CBA, and the sky-high contract of 5 years and 000 million yuan also allowed it to get more sponsorship rights, and the sneakers were no exception.

In the first season, Li Ning raised the compensation for competing products to 500,000 yuan, and the effect was immediate. In the following two seasons, the number of competing products was shared by other brands, and the total number was only 8, and the compensation was reduced to a single 00,000. Last season, the total number of places dropped to 4, and only national players had the right to buy, and in the end, only Nike's Yi Jianlian, Zhou Qi, Wang Zhelin and Ding Yanyuhang became special cases, and the compensation was 00,000 yuan per person.

Finally, in the current season, as early as July this year, the Chinese Basketball Association issued a notice to the club that all players must wear Li Ning shoes to play, and no exceptions are allowed. More than three months before the start of the game, there didn't seem to be much discussion about this document in the outside world, until the CBA officially started, Zhou Qi was banned from playing because he wore Nike shoes, and then he and Wang Zhelin successively posted a Weibo complaint, and Hongyuan Club applied to the Basketball Association to let Yi Jianlian make an exception to wear Nike, which attracted media attention.

This is probably the timeline of the entire CBA sneaker controversy, the topic is not new, and it has been discussed for a full year before. The fundamental reason why the first year still attracts great attention is that the basketball association should not sell the players' personal right to wear shoes in the first place.

Looking at the top professional leagues in various countries around the world, there is almost no monopoly on the sale of sneaker rights, from the fundamental demand, sneakers are different from jerseys, protective gear, etc., the sense of science and technology is heavier, everyone's foot type, wearing needs are difficult to unify, so it is difficult to achieve standardization like clothes, what shoes are comfortable to wear, only the parties feel the deepest.

Take the NBA with the highest degree of professionalism as an example, the sneaker brand is almost one of the first categories to enter the league, they are looking for individual stars from the beginning, at that time, Converse signed Larry Bird and Magic at the same time, Michael Jordan helped Nike soar, and later Nike and Adidas successively became league equipment sponsors, and there has been no sneaker rights, and sneakers have always been regarded as the personal rights and interests of players.

In fact, the NBA has not played the idea of players' sneaker rights, and there is another important reason, that is, the sneaker brand has actually become another important promotion channel for stars and the league.

There is a consensus in the industry that for every top star signed, the brand must at least spend the same amount of money for marketing, Nike and Kevin Durant's 10-year billion, James Harden and Adidas's 1-year billion, Dwyane Wade and Li Ning's 7-year 100 million...... With a little calculation, you can understand how much marketing expenses this is. The more sneaker brands there are, the wider the publicity channels, and the greater the exposure and commercial value of the stars and the league.

There are also counter-examples of this that I am very impressed by. It is precisely because of the dominance of league sponsors that there are very few domestic brands that are really willing to devote themselves to the CBA, and the domestic brands that were willing to sign domestic players in the early years have now tightened their money bags, because "they can't display their products, and there is no room for operation after signing". Another result is that the endorsement income of domestic players is getting less and less, and even many national players do not have brand sponsorship, even if they finally get the money, the annual income is hundreds of thousands smaller, which is completely different from the NBA's top star shoe endorsement income far exceeding the salary.

For the Chinese Basketball Association, the rights and interests of sneakers may be sold at a good price and generate income in the short term, but in the long run, the protests of stars, brands, and even fans have virtually damaged the value of the league and are not conducive to future commercial development.

It is worth mentioning that the separation of management and management of the basketball association has been put on the agenda, and the CBA league company, which represents the interests of the basketball association and the club, may soon start to officially operate. Another problem reflected in the sneaker incident is that under the new league power system, the rights and interests of players need to be defended by an institution similar to the NBA players' union, and this should be promoted at the same time.

It is hoped that the CBA will give up the small cake of sneaker rights and interests when the equipment sponsor is renegotiated, and the new equipment sponsor will take the initiative to give up this controversial sneaker rights and interests during the negotiation, so as to give players and brands more room to operate, and also give the league greater possibility of appreciation in the future. (To be continued)