NBA News NBA News, Match Reports and Updates 
[ad_1]
The NBA’s biggest stars are in the Bay Area this weekend for the 2025 All-Star Game, which will reunite three players who starred on last summer’s U.S. Olympic gold medal team. The trio has also dominated the basketball narrative for the past 15 years—or 21 in the case of LeBron James.
Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and James will team up on the Shaq OG squad. They are the NBA’s on-court OGs with 47 All-Star Game selections, and they are wildly successful off the court as well, earning a combined $230 million from endorsements last year.
More from Sportico.com
Curry led the way with an estimated $100 million from sponsors and other off-court ventures. When including his playing salary, he made $154 million and ranked second in Sportico’s annual look at the world’s 100 highest-paid athletes. James made an estimated $85 million from his commercial partners, while Durant checked in at $45 million.
The NBA’s player salaries are regulated by maximum salary rules tied to the salary cap, personal accolades, years in the league, and tenure with team. Excluding those players still on rookie contracts, almost everyone playing in the All-Star Game is making at least $35 million in playing salary.
But what separates the rich and the super-rich in the NBA’s financial hierarchy are the off-court earnings, and that usually starts with the shoe deal, which is almost always the biggest sponsor deal for an NBA player. “It’s gotta be the shoes,” Spike Lee’s Mars Blackmon famously espoused in a series of Nike basketball ads.
All-Star weekend represents a major point in the calendar for sneaker brands for special activations and product launches. They also use the summer to tap players for overseas trips, with Asia a popular destination.
James, Durant and Curry have the biggest sneaker deals in the sport among active players. Each makes more than $25 million annually from Nike (James, Durant) or Under Armour (Curry).
Curry has been one of the NBA’s most marketable players for the past decade, and his off-court earnings got a bump last year under his latest long-term Under Armour contract extension. In addition, he…
[ad_2]Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba-endorsement-stars-stephen-curry-140000154.html
Author : Sportico
Publish date : 2025-02-14 14:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
