NBA, every mention
29 scenes (2023), the whole family · ← back to NBA
tap a year for its mentions
every year 2023 anyone Ben Gilbert 51David Rosenthal 48Steve Ballmer 2Michael Mauboussin 1
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where NBA comes up
Nike (Audio) · Acquired
- ▶ 13:46 Ben Gilbert I think if I remember our NBA episode, the NBA was really getting going, like,
- ▶ 13:53 Ben Gilbert I'd guess he was an early fifties NBA player.
- ▶ 1:51:19 David Rosenthal He signs up like half the NBA for peanuts.
- ▶ 1:51:22 David Rosenthal Now, not the big stars, but the journeymen, the role players in the NBA.
- ▶ 2:17:07 Ben Gilbert Mary's famously, and like, he was very obviously one of the best NBA players as a freshman in high school.
- ▶ 2:17:24 Ben Gilbert He was not as big and as physical as a lot of the guys dominating the NBA at the time, and so doing a big deal with Jordan really was more of a gamble for Nike than they would do with really any athlete today.
- ▶ 2:18:38 David Rosenthal So the way shoe deals were done at the time, so Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were the biggest stars in the NBA at the time.
- ▶ 2:19:50 Ben Gilbert To figure out what are the things that by being small and cash-constrained and under-penetrated in the NBA, what strengths do we have?
- ▶ 2:25:05 Ben Gilbert If he didn't either win rookie of the year, or win the NBA finals, or win the MVP or something, there was an out in the contract.
- ▶ 2:25:30 Ben Gilbert It wasn't the NBA Finals, it was become an all-star.
- ▶ 2:26:58 David Rosenthal LeBron knew exactly what he was getting into when he signed with Nike out of high school and went to the NBA, but like,
- ▶ 2:27:47 Ben Gilbert And in the NBA, you wear white, and that's it.
- ▶ 2:29:41 Ben Gilbert And they make a whole big deal out of the fact that these shoes are so great, they are banned in the NBA.
- ▶ 2:30:18 Ben Gilbert Between Nike and the NBA, or Nike and Michael Jordan, because the fine was never levied.
- ▶ 2:43:59 David Rosenthal Yeah, it's just dwarfing what he's earning from the NBA.
- ▶ 2:44:11 Ben Gilbert From the get-go, his Nike earnings were way outpacing his NBA earnings.
- ▶ 2:50:31 Ben Gilbert Oh, and right around the same time, in 2003 is when LeBron came into the NBA and Nike signed him out of high school.
- ▶ 3:26:20 David Rosenthal I have to wonder, the other shoe companies who are still doing big deals in the NBA, let's take Under Armour and Steph Curry here in San Francisco, like,
- ▶ 3:27:32 Ben Gilbert They're now the official uniform supplier of the MLB, the NFL, and the NBA, and they're throwing huge dollars.
- ▶ 3:28:01 David Rosenthal So yes, the official jerseys, let's take the NBA for example.
- ▶ 3:28:06 David Rosenthal Nike replaced Adidas a few years back as the official jersey maker of the NBA.
- ▶ 3:28:12 David Rosenthal When most NBA jerseys are sold to buyers who pay money for them, aka fans, not the players,
- ▶ 3:29:02 Ben Gilbert Which, in many ways, that's part of why Nike is willing to pay to sponsor the NBA, is because the replica jerseys get more swooshes out there in the world, even if it's not on things that they sell.
- ▶ 3:41:03 Ben Gilbert This was the big takeaway from our NBA episode that is about marketing the athletes, not marketing the teams.
- ▶ 3:41:09 David Rosenthal Now, what's really interesting, since we did the NFL episode earlier this year after doing the NBA episode,
- ▶ 3:41:18 David Rosenthal The NFL is a better business as a league than the NBA.
- ▶ 3:41:25 David Rosenthal But the amount of value created out of the leagues, I think more value is created out of the NBA.
- ▶ 3:41:44 David Rosenthal The value coming out of the NBA.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek · Acquired
- ▶ 25:40 David Rosenthal We did the NBA, we did the NFL, and then we did LVMH.