In 1992, just before his rookie year, Shaquille O’Neal signed a sneaker deal with Reebok, marking one of the biggest deals signed in the brand’s history. Shaq’s move to Reebok was a calculated business decision that gave him full creative control.

Recently, the NBA legend revealed that the story of his sneaker deal with Reebok started with Nike. According to Shaq, before he started his rookie year, he went to Nike for the sneaker deal with the hope of getting his own signature shoe. However, he came out pissed at the brand.

“When I went to Nike, one f*** said, you know, you gotta play three years,” Shaq recalled during his appearance on The Pivot podcast.

“I'm like, play three years with what? They're like, yeah, we're not going to give you your own shoe, we gave it to somebody else. I was like, what the f*** did you just say to me? Then I went to Reebok with a Nike jacket on," O’Neal added. 

There is no doubt that in the 1990s, Nike was the dominant footwear brand in basketball. The sportswear giant soared to new heights with Michael Jordan as the central figure of the brand with his iconic “Air Jordan” line of shoes.

The NBA legend said that he told Reebok that he was offered a deal by Nike. Reebok ended up giving Shaq his signature shoe and much more.

“I got the control of marketing, and I made this little, you know, Jordan got Jumpman, I made Dunkman, can we put that s**t on my shoe? So that's how I got with Reebok,” O’Neal said.

Shaquille O’Neal’s first signature shoe deal was with Reebok in the 1992-93 NBA season, but he left a five-year, $40 million deal in 1998 to create his own.

Then he teamed up with Walmart to create the “Shaq” brand, a line of affordable shoes costing between $15 and $30 that filled a gap in the market that the bigger brands were missing.

The gamble paid off. Since then, the brand has sold more than 600 million pairs of shoes.

But before Shaq would go on to launch his own brand, his first partnership with Reebok turned out to be more lucrative than he could have imagined.

Shaquille O’Neal reveals how he almost doubled his deal with Reebok

Shaq’s meeting with Nike was very short. Upset with Nike, he reached out to Reebok and met with Roberto Muller, who ran the basketball division of the company. According to the NBA legend. Miller offered him a five-year deal

“Muller came in and said, ‘We know your demands. Here’s $3 million a year for five years. Don’t even look at the contract. Just sign it,'” Shaq recalled.

However, the Lakers legend knew he had an upper hand and got his contract amount almost doubled.

“I had heard stories of players just signing s*** without looking at it, so I had my guy look at it, and he ended up getting me $5 million a year and all creative control,” he added. “I wanted to create all of my own commercials.”

Later that year, Reebok released “Shaq Attack,” O’Neal’s first signature shoe. In 1998, the NBA legend broke up with the company and released his own shoe brand, SHAQ.

Do you think Nike made a mistake by not signing Shaquille O’Neal? Let us know in the comments.

Read more at Air Jordan Chronicles!

Written by

Nandjee Ranjan

Edited by

Utsav Gupta