Shaq talks to the NBA at NBA Final Matchup and TNT
Shaquille O’Neal will take part in the sport seriously and talk about the NBA and the “power moves” of his upcoming Netflix Docu series.
Seriously sports
Shaquille O’Neill towered over her three children, leaning over to share her secrets.
“Do you know how I made $900 million?” he asked the moment it was recorded on tape three years ago. “Listen to my mom and dad. Please make sure you listen to your parents.”
Well, boys and girls, it’s a little more complicated than that, even the 7-foot basketball legend that pulled this feat apart will retire from the sport that will help you make you rich and famous, then become even richer and famous.
TV commercial. License transaction. Other partnerships. O’Neal has been removed from his Hall of Fame career for 14 years, including four NBA Championship rings and three Final MVPs, and appears to have won cash everywhere.
On Wednesday, June 4th, Netflix premiered a six-episode docusary called “The Move with Shaquille O’Neal” in 2023, in which a 53-year-old, 53, will take over as Reebok’s president. Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers.
“The spread of Shaq today is unparalleled, and what makes it even more appealing is that it’s a post-carrier,” Stacy Jones, marketing expert and CEO of Hollywood brands, told USA Today Sports.
According to his representatives, O’Neal was not available for this week’s interview.
Perry Rogers and Colin Smeaton have both worked closely with O’Neill for about 20 years, and help O’Neill draw a vivid picture of how NBA wages have turned millions of wages into more and more millions, becoming a common name.
Before O’Neal retired in 2011, Rodgers said professional athletes lost 4% of public awareness after their careers ended on average. “And that surprised me,” Rogers, who once worked as an O’Neal agent, told USA Today Sports.
O’Neal will also lose a steady income – according to Spotrac.com, his playing salary totaled $286 million.
The trick was to come up with ways to generate more money.
Shaq’s instinct leads to big money
It was July 2011, a month after O’Neal officially retired, and ESPN and TNT (known at the time as Turner) were courting him as potential NBA analysts. Rogers said he wanted to wait for offers from both networks and use it as leverage.
O’Neill then spoke.
“He’s going, ‘Perry, you heard the pitch,'” Rogers recalled. “On the other hand, Turner said they are people in relationships and they don’t need me, but they want me. I’m a guy in relationships.
“Then I heard you say (ESPN Executive), “Hey, I’m the most competitive (let) in the world. I’ll build the whole show around you.” And if it’s not beating (ESPN), I wouldn’t have these reps yet.
Rogers, who relayed the anecdote to USA Today Sports, said he adhered to O’Neal’s wishes and immediately negotiated a deal with TNT.
The network’s Emmy-winning “Inside The NBA” studio show has proven to be the ideal platform to make O’Neal visible. He needed time to develop his skills as a television analyst. He also found that the proper chemistry, working with former NBA players Charles Berkley and Kenny Smith, is working with six-time Emmy Award winner Ernie Johnson. According to Front Office Sports, the quartet will head to ABC/ESPN next season, with O’Neal agreeing to an extension of more than $15 million a year.
“One of the great things about Shaquille is that he lets him take care of him,” Smeaton told USA Today Sports.
Shaq is surrounded by talent
O’Neill didn’t treat his retirement as an opportunity to feature golf and lounges by the pool.
“That’s not the way he’s wired,” said Smeaton, who works every day at the Shaq brand. Now, how do you apply it to the rest of my business? “And that was music to our ears.”
O’Neal’s first agent, Leonard Armato, played a key role in helping shape the SHAQ brand into a lucrative entity in two ways for private reasons. However, without Armato and later his basketball career, the brand continued to boom. Rogers and Smeeton, who began working with O’Neal after their split with Armato, helped refine the Shaq brand.
In 2015, Sports Illustrated published a list of O’Neal’s top 50 supporters. The complete list follows balloons, including Carnival Cruise Line, DraftKings, Hershey’s, Papa John’s, Beatbox Beverages and more. He also owns over 30 large chicken franchises that offer some of his childhood favorites and is deeply invested in the foodservice business. According to Yahoo Finance, he once owned five people, a burger and fried joint.
“While playing basketball games, NFL games, or programming over there, Shaq has the power to compete with any other celebrities.
With the help of Rogers and Smeaton, the Shaq brand focuses on “fun business.”
Perhaps their biggest play came a decade ago when Rogers and Smeaton brokered a deal to sell 51% of the SHAQ brand to a real brand group. O’Neill will become the second largest individual shareholder in a company that owns brands of celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe and David Beckham, with its subsidiaries including Champion and Reebok.
Smeaton showed that the partnership with Authentic helped drive O’Neal towards a $1 billion threshold for lifetime revenue.
“If he’s not there yet,” said Smeaton, who joined the real thing in 2019. “He’ll be there soon.”
Shaq: “My biggest mistake was ruining my family.”
The strength of O’Neal’s brand has been tested. By O’Neill himself.
In the latest episode of his podcast “Big Podcast with Shaq,” O’Neal mentioned the affair he said, leading to his divorce from his ex-wife, Shaunie.
“I’m the voice of someone who’s made a lot of mistakes and wants to recover from mistakes,” said O’Neill, who has six children, including four with Shawnee.
O’Neal also had other set-ups. Like two civil lawsuits, one stems from approval of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and the other from Astral’s involvement in inappropriate token projects, settling this year for a total of $11 million.
O’Neal and other celebrities have been accused of being misleading consumers to promote unregistered securities on FTX and promote unregistered securities on Astral.
However, the Shaq brand has not received an identifiable hit.
Corporate America is a partner with O’Neal, who played a practical role in developing the Hershey Company and Shaq-a-Liootic XL Gummies (Cannabis Free) in 2024.
“He’s involved on a deeper level and the brand loves it,” said Jones, CEO of Hollywood. He appears, promotes, and often contributes behind the scenes. That’s a big reason why brands continue to return.”
Kimberly A. Whitler, an associate professor of business management at the University of Virginia, said O’Neill also protects his business interests by avoiding controversial political issues.
“That model – to maximize the number of consumers to support and value celebrities – we need to focus on creating a wide range of attractions,” Whitler told USA Today Sports.
Shaq builds his empire from Michael Jordan’s blueprint – with one exception
Michael Jordan is a blueprint when it comes to athletes developing the brand, Jones said.
“He takes the legacy of his movement, elevates it to a luxury brand, and its quiet, high-end exclusiveness completely affects his legacy,” she said.
O’Neill embraced something else: the normal person.
New Air Jordan sneakers cost over $200. O’Neal’s branded shoes from shaq.com are available for $29.95.
Rather than trying to imitate Jordan’s luxury brand, O’Neal’s Big and Tall Collection is housed at JCPenney, with a ribbed polo shirt available for $17.49. Then there’s his contract with General, an insurance company known for its affordable car insurance premiums.
“I called Shaquille and said, ‘Hey, look, we’re talking to these people, I don’t know how you’re feeling about it,” Rogers Aids said. “And Shaquille says, “I’ll do it.” (I said), don’t I like anything to you?
“And he said, “I had an insurance company general. I know what it means to need affordable insurance.”
Sometimes the camera rolled, and without it, O’Neill gave pizza, shoes, clothes, and embrace. He just knows other people’s vans, engagement rings, heaven elsewhere.
In 2024, he received the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for raising millions of dollars for charity through the Shaquille O’Neill Foundation.
Last month, at the end of TNT’s “Inside The NBA,” O’Neal told the show’s stage manager, “We packed up the money and bought a gift.”
Berkley said, “Shak, fair, you should buy all the gifts. You’ve got the most money.”
