Championships, legacies and GOAT debates aren’t the only things in which LeBron James is measured against Michael Jordan. Other than championship rings, Jordan’s greatest legacy is accelerating the NBA’s growth in turning it into a massive business and a global brand. So with that being one of his biggest legacies, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that his sneaker income still dwarfs LeBron and all of the NBA’s current players.
Forbes.com’s Kurt Badenhausen released a breakdown of the richest sneaker deals in the NBA and found that Jordan still out-earned LeBron by nearly $100 million in sneaker revenue. While James earned a big check of $32 million through Nike, Jordan earned $130 million through sneaker money.
A big difference of course is that the Jordan Brand with Nike is a standalone brand unto itself, with Jordan getting a cut of everything his brand sells. They endorse everyone from current NBA players (they just landed Zion Williamson) to boxers and football players, which is a much more expansive portfolio than LeBron’s current Nike line.
