By Rachel Bachman
It was NBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis and executives from the world's leading shoe companies descended on hotel lobbies in the city to make their pitch to the biggest stars in basketball.
But the prize they were all after wasn't anyone shooting out the lights in the NBA. In fact, the player they all wanted hadn't even turned pro yet. She was a 6-foot senior at the University of Iowa who was in the midst of rewriting the record books.
Everyone was asking the same question: Which shoe company would land Caitlin Clark?
Two months later, it turns out the answer is Nike. The biggest name in women's basketball is set to sign an eight-year deal worth up to $28 million with the biggest name in sportswear, according to people familiar with the situation.
If that outcome seems inevitable, the reality is that Clark striking a deal with Nike was far from a slam dunk. In fact, the race to tie her to a shoe contract ranked as the most competitive in the history of women's basketball, playing out against the backdrop of Clark lifting her sport to new heights and unprecedented TV ratings as she became a household name across America.
Nike, which declined to comment for this article, had already signed Clark once before. But that was in 2022, before she took over the national sports conversation with her prolific scoring, gravity-defying 3-pointers and feisty-girl-next-door persona. That original deal was set to expire at the end of the 2023-24 college basketball season -- and everyone in the sneaker business knew it.
So executives arrived in Indianapolis to meet with Excel Sports Management, the agency that represents Clark along with Derek Jeter and Tiger Woods, hoping to convince her that her next shoe deal should be with them.
By this point, Clark was undoubtedly a phenomenon. On Feb. 15, the night before NBA All-Star festivities began,she had broken the NCAA women's basketball career scoring record with one of her logo shots from near midcourt.
As Clark was cooling off from that 49-point performance, her agents were turning up the temperature on the shoe-company reps. They informed the brands courting her -- which included Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and Puma -- that winning her commitment would take a historic offer: $3 million a year at the very minimum.
Some of the brand reps were shocked by the number. It was a huge sum for a women's basketball player, few of whom ever receive deals worth more than six figures.
What made it seem even more extravagant was that no one knew where Clark would be playing the following season. She hadn't yet announced her intention to turn pro and plenty of people hoped she would return for her final year of eligibility at Iowa under the NCAA's Covid-era exception. That included the fans inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, who chanted "One more year!" on the night she broke the NCAA career scoring record.
It also included a few of the shoe-company executives, who believed that being a college player was a major part of her allure. Several went as far as making their offers conditional on her staying in school for another year, according to a person familiar with the situation.
By NBA All-Star weekend, however, it was clear that Clark had burst into new territory. She was no longer just generating crazy highlight reels every time she stepped on the court. She was a crossover athlete transcending college sports.
"She played herself into a position where it wasn't even contingent on staying in college," someone familiar with the situation said. "People just wanted her."
The only question was how badly. Puma heard the $3 million a year number and promptly dropped out. The manufacturer already had deals with LSU's Flau'Jae Johnson and WNBA players including Breanna Stewart, last season's league MVP who has her own signature shoe.
A Puma executive said in a statement that Stewart's was the first women's signature shoe in more than a decade and that Clark and her brand partners would continue to push the game forward.
In early winter, Adidas held a Zoom call with Clark. It was supposed to be 30 minutes long but turned into an hour. While some athletes let their agents ask the questions or wade through details, this was one more area where Clark, an honors student in marketing at Iowa's business school, liked to have the ball in her hands. Adidas executives were surprised by how engaged, curious and well-prepared she was on the call.
Adidas sent Clark some shoes, and even prepared a prototype signature model for her. But the Adidas bid fell far short of the mark: $6 million over four years.
In the end, the closest contender for Nike was Under Armour, a company whose highest-profile ambassador happens to be another long-shooting phenom. When Under Armour made its pitch to Clark, Stephen Curry participated, according to The Athletic. The offer was $16 million over four years, with a signature shoe.
Under Armour's full-court press coincided with the return of company founder Kevin Plank as CEO and the company's broader push into women's basketball. Earlier this year, Curry's personal brand signed South Carolina freshman MiLaysia Fulwiley as its first college athlete.
But in Clark's case, Under Armour and Curry knew how hard it would be to take on Nike. Four years earlier, they had been in contention to land Sabrina Ionescu, the Oregon triple-double phenom who is now with the WNBA's New York Liberty, only for her to sign with the swoosh.
That deal, which expires at the end of next year, was reported to be worth $24 million and included a signature shoe, dubbed the Sabrina 1.
Ionescu, however, won't receive that much, according to someone familiar with the situation. Though her shoe has sold well, her visibility was dented by injury and her early years in the WNBA coinciding with the pandemic. Like most shoe contracts, the potential value of Ionescu's deal included numerous on-court incentives, along with bonuses for shoe sales.
When it came to Clark, Nike looked even further into the future. The duration of the proposed contract, eight years, suggests that the brand sees not only long-term stardom potential, but truly global appeal. The next eight years, Nike executives reasoned, would give Clark a chance to represent the U.S. at three Olympic Games -- this summer in Paris, 2028 in Los Angeles, and 2032 in Brisbane, Australia. (The U.S. roster for Paris won't be announced until June or July.)
Nike's initial offer of $3.5 million a year, though an eye-popping number, didn't initially come with a signature shoe. One possibility floated was that Clark would instead become the female face of the Kobe Bryant line, which relaunched in August 2023 to great fanfare.
In its final offer to Clark, however, Nike upped its offer to include a signature shoe. That would give her the most lucrative and attractive shoe deal in women's basketball -- and yet another record for her collection.
Write to Rachel Bachman at Rachel.Bachman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 19, 2024 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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