Teen power

Nike puts the whole world in LeBron's eager hands

I long ago passed the fuddy-duddy stage, the point where multi-million dollar contracts to young, gifted athletes prompt screams of outrage and blusters of disbelief.

No, now I'm fully into the shaking-head stage. I do it regularly. Lots of people do. Sometimes that's all you can do.

LeBron James, 18, is going to make somewhere around $100 million to peddle shoes for Nike over the next seven years.

Hold on for a minute. One hundred million dollars. One hundred million.

Eighteen years old.

Shake, shake, shake.

Seriously, what are you gonna do? Sure, it's a little warped. It's stupid. It's downright ridiculous. One hundred million dollars to a teenager to wear your shoes and push your products? An untested teenager? (Teens, by definition, are all untested.)

A hundred million? A teenager?

What are you gonna do?

Yeah, you sputter: Whaaaa? And then you wonder: Can he possibly be worth that? Is anyone worth that?

Then the answer comes. And, as always, the answer is yes. Because if someone is stupid/desperate/visionary enough to pay it, that's what he's worth.

Nike is willing to take that $100 million chance, which for them is practically nothing. The omnipresent swoosh had sales in 2002 that approached $10 billion. The company holds about 40 percent of the athletic footwear market. The people at Nike evidently feel that investing a little over $14 million a year in James will help them increase that market share. It doesn't have to increase a whole lot to pay off James.

So LeBron, a prep basketball star of uncommon skills, is Nike's man. Or teen, anyway. And we better be prepared. Because, before you know it, this youngster from Akron, Ohio will be everywhere.

You won't be able to walk through a mall or a high school without seeing something LeBron. There will be ads everywhere. Slick, wordless commercials. Cool stuff with great soundtracks. The LeBron logo will be unveiled. The LeBron slogan will be on every teen's lips.

Coming soon: LeBron hightops, LeBron baggy shorts, LeBron sweatbands and headbands. LeBron T-shirts. LeBron socks. The entire LeBron Line, from top to bottom.

Coming first: The senior prom, graduation and getting that all-important second Hummer.

LeBron will be on TV later this year, playing for the sad-sack Cleveland Cavaliers, who will pick him No. 1 in the NBA draft in June. As inept as they've been over the years, the Cavs won't be foolish enough to pass up the marketing phenomenon that LeBron will be. Winning will be secondary. All they will have to do is climb on LeBron's back and watch the money from his jersey sales roll in. It's a slam dunk.

LeBron will be in the movies, eventually. Because, really, how can he do any worse than Kazaam? Nike will try to roll him out slowly -- can't have overkill, nooooo, sir -- but by this time next year LeBron will be better known than Shaq or Kobe or AI or anyone else in the NBA. And making more endorsement money than them, too.

There will be LeBron cologne. The LeBron cell phone. The LeBron CD. He'll be a pitchman for a fast food chain. Video game makers will line up at his door. He'll be on the cover of both Tigerbeat and GQ.

Coming first: Bookbags, finals and the class trip to Cleveland.

This, by any measure, is the single biggest shoe deal ever signed. When Kevin Garnett went from high school to the NBA in 1995, he got a reported $500,000 a year from Nike. Vince Carter rakes in about $6 million a year now from the swoosh. Allen Iverson has a reported 10-year, $50 million deal with Reebok.

Other athletes, and former athletes, pull in a lot of money hawking products. It is said Tiger Woods will have pocketed $1 billion in endorsements by the time he's 40. He's only 27. Former boxer George Foreman has made a killing selling mufflers and grills. Michael Jordan is an empire unto himself.

But no one has started off like this. Heck, Jordan's first contract with Nike, back in 1984, was worth only $2.5 million over five years.

So LeBron James, out of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, instantly becomes the anointed "next Jordan." James will be expected to connect with the young kids, to become a role model, to carry the NBA's next generation of fans. He's expected, by many, to become a cultural icon like Jordan. A worldwide cultural icon, even.

The Chosen One, as Sports Illustrated dubbed him last year when the magazine stuck the youngster on its cover, has arrived. Accept it. Live with it. Quit shaking your head over it.

LeBron James has $100 million -- and more coming -- to spend. He has a lot to sell, too.

First, though, he has to wash his hands and clean up his room.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.

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