Empoword

Part Three: Research and Argumentation 404 despite the fact that “LaVar insists he’s doing what’s best for Lonzo, his behavior could end up costing his son millions.” Unsurprisingly, LaVar replied, “you goddang right I’m costing him millions because it ain’t about millions with us. It’s about them Bs. Billions” (Le Batard). Beyond the dollar figure and amount of zeros on the contract, the biggest and most important part of these public negotiations have been the extent of input the Balls have on their own brand. That is the essential aspect of co-branding: the retention of creative control. When it comes down to it, LaVar asserts that “as long as my son’s got a shoe, if I only made 50 shoes, they’re for him. It’s his own shoe” (Le Batard). The pride that he has in Lonzo and that the Ball boys can have in their product is vital, and that is something he says his young, unproven sons would never get from the giants Nike, adidas, and Under Armour. Besides a father’s pride in his sons, an athlete’s control over their own brand is increasingly becoming a point of contention between the players and the shoe companies. In his seminal piece examining how and why Stephen Curry walked away at the expiration of his deal with Nike, Ethan Strauss discusses Curry’s own journey to create his own space in the sneaker and basketball worlds. A huge concern for Curry while negotiating a renewed deal with Nike, which he signed as a rookie before he became the superstar he is today, was whether he would get to lead his own Nike- sponsored camp for elite youth players. This not only lets young players learn from the best, but it also allows the professionals to tangibly affect the best up-and-coming talents, something much “more meaningful than strangers clamoring for autographs on the street” (Strauss). Nike, though, did not value Curry enough to give him this and put him on their second tier of athletes, the athletes without their own signature. Now, though, with Under Armour, Curry has both his camp and a signature sneaker and is a bigger, more unique star than he ever would be under Nike. Curry is not alone in this, either. A player’s brand is inextricably linked to their footwear nowadays, perhaps more than the teams they play for and their on-court prowess. DePaula points out that shoe deals are actually negotiated in much the same way that free agent contracts are hashed out. He also writes, “[As] players of all levels enter the league, their eventual shoe deal continues to be secondary to team deals, but