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- LeBron James is as closely associated with Nike as any athlete since Michael Jordan.
- He signed the largest rookie shoe contract in basketball history before even joining the NBA, and a lifetime deal with Nike that is reportedly the largest single-athlete guarantee in the company’s history.
- But Nike has tanked as a company in recent history, and James offered some advice for the retail giant to gets its “cool” factor back at the CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in New York.
LeBron James speaks with Boardroom’s Rich Kleiman at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in New York City on July 16. 2026.Shea Kastriner / CNBC
LeBron James has still not picked which NBA team he will play for next. In one of his first public appearances since telling the Los Angeles Lakers that he would become a free agent, James, appearing at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit, told Boardroom’s Rich Kleinman that he will be playing somewhere else and that he “won’t hold you guys up too much longer.”
But what is not up in the air is what shoes he’ll be wearing, with James’ storied career being closely tied to Nike.
That relationship dates to 2003, when James signed a 7-year, $90 million endorsement contract with Nike before joining the NBA, which still stands as the largest rookie shoe contract in basketball history.
In 2015, James signed a lifetime deal with Nike that is reportedly the largest single-athlete guarantee in the company’s history. In 2021, Nike unveiled the Lebron James Innovation Center at the company’s Beaverton, Oregon headquarters, a 700,000-square-foot facility focused on breakthroughs in sports science.
However, while James has continued to play at an all-star level — he was named to the NBA All-Star team for a record twenty-second consecutive time this past season — Nike has slumped.
In 2026, Nike’s stock is down 30%. Shares are down more than 70% from its high in November 2021.
Stock Chart IconStock chart icon
Nike stock chart over the last five years.
Nike found success during the pandemic under CEO John Donahoe, who heavily focused the business on direct selling and e-commerce, but its move away from wholesalers caused it to struggle as upstart competitors like Hoka and On Running started to take market share.
While Donahoe led the company through a broad restructuring plan aimed at reducing costs and shedding workforce so it could invest in growth areas, the strategy didn’t pan out.
In October 2024, three-decade Nike veteran Elliott Hill came out of retirement to take over as CEO, aiming to focus on a strategy that would recenter the company on innovation and rebuilding trust with consumers and athletes.
“My first day on the job, my slide said two things: we’re a sport company, and we’re a growth company,” Hill told CNBC in October 2025. “When we grow sport, we grow the overall marketplace. And when that happens, I like our chances of growing.”
To date, the strategy hasn’t been a slam dunk. Its most recent quarter saw the company beat Wall Street expectations and grow revenue in North America, but sales in Greater China and other parts of the world have continued to slump.
“Overall, the results aren’t there yet,” Hill said on a call with analysts. “We know we’re not living up to our full potential, particularly in Nike sportswear and Jordan streetwear, where sell-through remains challenged, impacting both current discounting and future order books.”
“Being a part of Nike, there’s a responsibility that I feel … on making sure we’re not dwindling,” James said. “It’s always been a cool factor to put on a pair of Nikes.”
“There’s a responsibility as a Nike athlete to rule supreme, because that’s all I grew up on. That’s all I know. That’s all I’ve been a part of for two decades,” James added.
Kleiman asked James what Nike could do to reclaim its brand status, both with Wall Street and consumers.
“You’ve got to get back into the roots; you’ve got to get back to being out in the inner city,” James said. “When I was coming up, you had people that were literally out in the communities, talking and asking them what they like, what they don’t like, how they feel about this and how they feel about that.”
The company’s struggles have led many to speculate on what could help Nike reclaim its sportswear crown.
In a separate session at Game Plan, Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin said that “to build what Nike’s built is nearly impossible,” adding that what the company wants to be is “both big and cool.”
“It’s a very hard combination,” Rubin said.
Rubin was also critical of some of Nike’s prior decisions, moves that he said were “a lot of obvious things that didn’t make sense.”
“They really allowed so much competition to come into the marketplace,” Rubin said. “So what Nike has to do is figure out … how can they grow again, and how can they maintain coolness?”
In an April analyst note, UBS’ Jay Sole asked whether Nike had lost its “superpower,” which has been maintaining its status as a high-end brand across a variety of sports niches despite also selling lower-priced products.
Sole also noted the company’s long-standing stronghold in basketball, which may be less relevant than it was in years past.
“Nike’s superpower is based, in part, on being able to maintain an image of being the best sports brand despite selling a lot of commodity products,” Sole wrote. “Basketball was a vehicle for being able to do that. It’s unclear whether Nike can use basketball in the same way today. Plus, it’s not clear what other method Nike has to regularly refresh its image with U.S. consumers.”
James said when he had that decision in front of him in 2003 to sign a shoe deal, there was a main reason why he chose Nike.
“What do I want to put on my feet when I leave my house every day?” James said. “It was that cool factor of what Deion Sanders brought to it, what Bo Jackson brought to it, what Barry Sanders brought to it, what Ken Griffey Jr. brought to the brand. Obviously, [Michael Jordan]. Like, come on, it was such a cool factor.”
James said Nike “can’t lose our cool, that is universal.”
“Everyone wants to feel cool when they leave the house, man or woman, you want to feel a sense of cool,” James said. “I think tapping back into that, that’s really it.”
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