The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 289 — Working with Wemby 💰
Can we put together a sneaker deal for Big Vic?
Goooood morning, family. Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you so much for rocking with me today. I appreciate you.
HOUSEKEEPING: A couple things at the top.
It’s mailbag week! The final Friday of the month is on the way. Y’all know the vibes. Make sure you get your mailbag questions in for this Friday at this link here. Thanks, family.
KYW will be out for the first week or so of June and back on the 12th. I’ll be traveling a bit down in Orlando. If anyone is out there, holla at yerboi.
With that out the way, let’s dive in.
What does a Victor Wembanyama sneaker deal look like?
There are very few questions about Victor Wembanyama when it comes to the 7’5 French phenom’s future in the NBA. He’s going to be a San Antonio Spur.
What’s not as certain is the future of Big Vic's size 20.5 feet.
We don’t know what a sneaker deal for the future No. 1 overall pick will look like. But we can work through what we know about the situation to try and piece a little something together.
Where things stand: Wembanyama hasn’t signed a major deal just yet, but he is currently a Nike athlete.
Wembanyama has been wearing Nike for the majority of his professional career in France and sported the GT Run over the last year with his club, Met 92.
Nike has already begun working marketing dollars behind Wembanyama. The brand dropped a couple of tweets on NBA lottery night surrounding the kid and already seems to have a campaign planned.
Vic is a Nike guy. It’s safe to assume that the swoosh is probably the brand he’ll sign his next big deal with. He’s already in the room with Nike and the brand certainly has him set as one of its biggest priorities.
So now that we’ve got that out the way, the question becomes what does his deal actually look like.
The precedent: LeBron James set a record for the richest sneaker deal an NBA rookie has ever signed when he inked a 7-year, $90 million contract with Nike back in 2003. It is entirely possible — and maybe even probable? — that Wembanyama shatters that.
When we look at recent sneaker deals on the market for some of the most hyped NBA prospects in recent memory, Zion Williamson signed a 5-year, $75 million deal with Jordan Brand in his rookie year of 2019.
Luka Doncic signed that same deal with the same brand, though it came a year after his rookie season. Both deals, obviously, included signature sneakers.
Considering those benchmarks and where Wembanyama sits as the most hyped prospect since LeBron James, it’s safe to say he's got enough leverage to clear that $75 million mark at the very least.
There has been speculation that his deal could potentially reach $100 million, which honestly feels a right to me. Wembanyama is already driving up his market. The prospect’s agent told ESPN his team has already turned down multiple “rich deals” from brands. Former sneaker executive Sonny Vaccaro told TMZ that we’re in “blank check” territory with Wembanyama and I think he’s right.
It’s hard to hone in on a dollar figure here without knowing the market. But $100 million feels like a sweet spot — maybe even a bit lower than it should land.
The big question: What everyone is going to ask is how quickly we get a Wembanyama signature shoe. What I want to know is whether he’ll actually get one at all.
I’m assuming yes. But it’s not that simple with him.
Though Wembanyama is a basketball alien, he’s still a big man. And brands — especially Nike – have been extremely hesitant in giving big men shoes.
Look up and down Nike’s basketball roster. It’s perimeter-oriented and has been that way for decades. Giannis Antetokounmpo is the furthest the brand has strayed away from that strategy in recent years and it took a while for Nike to get there.
But…Victor is different, man. This dude is already a star. Everyone knows who he is. He’s charming, he’s marketable and he’s extremely skilled. If he stays healthy, he’s going to be good. Really good. And it’d be foolish for Nike — or whatever brand — to not capitalize on that because of past precedent.
Besides, the big men don’t sell shoe thing isn’t always right. We can look to the history of Shaq to see that.
So, yeah. I think the signature thing happens.
What we’re looking at: If you add all of this together, we’ve got a signature sneaker deal for Victor Wembanyama. The brand is probably going to be Nike. And the money is probably going to somewhere in that $100 million ballpark.
I’m probably totally wrong, but that’s my official guess. Feel free to roast me.
Maybe we can finally move past Yeezy now
It’s official, folks. We’ve finally got a date for Adidas’ last hurrah with Yeezy and it’s happening extremely soon. Adidas announced on Friday that it’d begin selling the last remnants of its Yeezy products starting on May 31.
My first thought: Was that this is an extremely quick turnaround considering we just learned of this reunion last week.
It's fast, but it makes sense. These are all styles that were slated to go out in 2022. They’ve just been sitting in a warehouse somewhere awaiting direction.
The details: As I said, Adidas wasn’t going to sell these sneakers again without giving us some detail on how the proceeds were being split to organizations harmed by Kanye West’s abhorrent behavior.
The brand gave us a bit — but it was also still a bit sparse on specifics.
The brand says it will donate a “significant portion” of proceeds will be donated to those organizations.
Adidas specifically cited the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change. More are included but weren’t mentioned.
I reached out to Adidas for more specifics because I had two questions: First, what is the exact percentage of the portion being donated to these organizations? Second, could we see a complete list of the organizations included here?
The brand declined to give me any of that information, saying that the statement is the only thing it has to offer at this time.
I do think those questions are important and need to be answered — especially considering West is still getting a 15% cut from all sales due to the previous agreement the brand had with him. So, hopefully, those answers come in time as we keep digging.
In the meantime, I hope that after these Yeezys release, we can just be done with all of this. Kanye’s brand doesn’t deserve this spotlight. I’m tired of talking about it. I’m sure you’re tired of reading about it.
So let’s just get this thing over with.
Foot Locker’s Nike problem has arrived
Foot Locker’s investor day a couple months ago had lots of people bullish on the brand moving forward in 2023, but the company is going through a bit of a pain point right now.
What’s happening: The company’s sales and net income have dipped quite a bit year over year, according to CNBC.
The company’s net income for Q1 was down to $36 million from about $132 million this time last year.
Foot Locker’s sales have also dipped down to $1.93 billion from $2.18 billion a year earlier.
Why this is happening: Demand is down in the sneaker world. With inflation still posing problems for consumers, brands like Foot Locker and Nike have had to dish off discounts to clear out inventory. That’s great for us. It hurts bottom lines, though.
Plus: Foot Locker still has that Nike problem it's dealing with.
It was just a little over a year ago that Nike pulled some of its product off of Foot Locker’s shelves. It still leads the company as far as products sold, but it’s only about 55% of the product instead of the typical 70% or higher it used to be.
Foot Locker still hasn’t found a sustainable way to recover from that dip. When you add that in with decreasing demand from the consumer, this big dip is what you get.
Foot Locker is hoping the strategies it touted on investor day will help curb some of this and spark some growth. The brand believes it can become a $9.5 billion enterprise by 2026.
We’ll see if the people agree.
Some boxing content!
Listen. I know Devin Haney definitely wasn’t supposed to win the fight over the weekend against Vasiliy Lomachenko. Seems like almost everyone thinks Loma was robbed.
But with how much this Shoe Surgeon Off-White x Louis V Air Force 1 boot cost, could you truly blame Haney for a robbery? These definitely were an arm and a leg.
I’m joking, mostly. I did have Loma winning 7-5, but that's just me.
Regardless, that was a fun fight. And these kicks Haney wore during the match added even more to it for yerboi.
What’s droppin, bruh?
New Balance x Poets Tiago Lemos 1010 — Monday, May 22
Air Jordan 6 “Toro Bravo” — Wednesday, May 24
Air Max 1 “Coral Stardust” —Friday, May 26
DTLR x New Balance “Virginia is for Lovers” — Friday, May 26
Air Jordan 1 “Vibrations of Naija” — Saturday, May 27
Thank y’all for rocking with me. I appreciate your time. Please, please, please go out there and have an amazing week. Let’s chat again on Friday. Don’t forget — drop those questions in the mailbag!
Let’s chat. Until then, peace and love. Be easy, be safe, be kind. And we out.
-Sykes 💯