More than two years of unruly shoe wear are over, and Andrew Wiggins' sneaker endorsements are finally coming to an end.
Sloth Bear Sports learned that Golden State Warriors player Wiggins has reached an agreement with Peak with a contract term of "3+2" and an annual endorsement fee and bonus of nearly $1 million.
Wiggins was originally a signed player for Adidas, but did not renew his contract after his contract expired in 2018. In later games, he usually wore Nike sneakers on the court. But in two training videos that flowed out in August and November, Wiggins was wearing Peak shoes, one of which was a version that had not yet been officially released, sparking speculation about whether the two sides had reached a cooperation.
In 2014, the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Wiggins with the first overall pick in the draft and traded him to the Minnesota Timberwolves. According to ESPN, Wiggins signed a four-year, average annual shoe contract with Adidas after being elected as the winner.
Wiggins won the 2014-15 Rookie of the Year.
Wiggins averaged 16.9 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game in his rookie season, winning the 2014-15 rookie of the season. In the following two seasons, Wiggins averaged more than 20 points per game, laying a solid foundation for him to win the first major contract of his career.
In October 2017, Wiggins signed an early renewal of a five-year, $148 million contract with the team, effective 2018. But the five-year-long contract had just been fulfilled for a season when Wiggins was traded to the Warriors. From signing a huge long contract to being traded by the team in just two years, Wiggins's growth rate is not as fast as expected is the core reason.
From the top of the team to the level of fans, everyone thinks that Wiggins has top physical talent, and the explosive barriers that appear from time to time are a good proof. But in terms of on-field performance, Wiggins always gives people a lazy feeling, and Chinese fans also joke that Wiggins plays health basketball on the field, and the next is the health boy who "soaks goji berries in the insulated cup".
Perhaps it is that Wiggins is too "healthy", the talent has not been fully realized, Adidas is hesitant to launch a signature shoe for him, and did not renew his contract after the contract expired. It is worth mentioning that Wiggins is only 25 years old this year, and professional players generally reach their peak at the age of 30. Therefore, Peak's contract is locked in the golden period of Wiggins's next 3-5 years of career.
Curry has won three championships after escaping injuries.
Take Wiggins' teammate Stephen Curry, for example, whose performance fluctuated before the age of 25 due to frequent injury hits. But after the age of 25, Curry got rid of injuries and won two regular season MVPs and three championship trophies in one fell swoop. Curry's subsequent sudden outburst surprised many people, including Nike, who did not choose to renew Curry's contract after the expiration of their first endorsement contract. Before the 2013-14 season, Under Armour took Curry into his pocket and successfully gained a place in the basketball shoe market with its rapid popularity.
From this point of view, peak and Wiggins cooperation is like scratching the lottery, looking forward to Wiggins can usher in an outbreak like Curry, providing a new development opportunity for the brand. And the competition for young players by major brands is becoming more and more fierce, betting on high-ranking "free agents" who still have potential to tap may be a more shrewd choice.
At the 2019 Draft, 13 of the 30 players in the first round signed with the Nike or JORDAN brands, and 4 players in the top 5 picks signed with these two brands. In addition to the two sports brands mentioned above, brands such as Adidas and Under Armour, as well as Puma, Converse and New Balance, which have recently restarted their basketball business, are also actively competing for rookies and other young players.
For domestic brands, their popularity and influence among NBA rookie players are still lagging behind brands such as Nike and Adidas, and their competitiveness in signing endorsements is not too strong. Therefore, if domestic brands want to compete with other sports brands for young spokespeople, they have to pay more resources and energy. Instead of spending money and effort to bid on young people with other brands, it is better to focus on those who are already famous and temporarily frustrated, and save some endorsement costs while ensuring the popularity and exposure of the spokesperson.
Li Ning signed with Van Vleet.
Li Ning seems to be adopting this strategy as well. In the summer of 2019, they met R.J. Hampton, the favourite for the 2020 Pick-up. Hampton signed a five-year contract costing millions of dollars. More than a year later, Hampton was drafted by the New Orleans Pelicans with the 24th pick in the first round at the draft and was traded to the Denver Nuggets. Therefore, the cost performance of Li Ning's contract with Hampton may be greatly reduced.
Li Ning's latest choice is Fred VanVleet, the lavish champion of the Raptors, affectionately known by fans as "Van Jordan", which once attracted the interest of multiple brands. But after many rounds of negotiations, he chose Li Ning. According to Lazy Bear Sports, its endorsement price is less than a million DOLLARs a year.
Similar NBA players on the market are Jimmy Butler, whose contract with the JORDAN brand was supposed to expire on September 30 this year, and the two sides chose to break up 10 months earlier. Many brands have expressed interest in Butler, including Chinese brands, whose external endorsement offers once dropped to $2 million / year, and then his expectations changed because of the high popularity of leading the team to the Finals. From Butler's delay in determining the new shoes, it can also be seen that sports brands are becoming more and more cautious about the choice of spokespeople, and pay more and more attention to cost performance.
In fact, Peak has always paid attention to cost performance in the selection of NBA spokespersons, and when they first formed their own NBA spokesperson lineup, they adopted the "sea of people tactics", targeting the main role players of popular teams and achieving brand promotion and product exposure in a more "cost-effective" way.
Parker and Battier's three titles continue Peak's "law of champions."
This model not only won enough exposure for Peak, but also gained good publicity material such as "The Law of Champions". Between 2009 and 2014, there must have been a player who signed Peak on the NBA championship team that season, and the terrier was widely spread among fans at the time. Through this signing strategy, Peak can not only make its products appear on the finals stage, but also do not have to spend as much money as signing with superstars.
And for Peak, Wiggins likes to play health basketball, so that players are not easily injured, and product exposure can be better guaranteed. Wiggins has played six seasons so far in his career, and based on 82 regular season games per season, he has played in 454 of the 492 games, with a 92.28% appearance rate. It is worth noting that if the Warriors can participate in the rematch last season, Wiggins's career appearance rate will be even higher.
On the other hand, Wiggins' Warriors team has been a regular in the Finals in recent years and has gained many fans in the Chinese market. According to the NBA Content Ecology White Paper released by Tencent Sports on July 31, 2020, the Warriors have been among the teams that users have paid the most attention to in the past two seasons, and in the ten most watched playoff showdowns in the 2018-19 season, the Warriors participated in nine of them.
Although Klay Thompson was hit by another injury before the start of the season, and the injury situation is unclear at the moment, the Warriors still have a good chance of returning to the playoffs in the new season after Curry's return. If Wiggins can follow the team to the playoffs, or even go further, then Peak's signing is undoubtedly more cost-effective.
Anta's Thompson, Hayward, Li Ning's McCollum, Van Vliet and Hampton, Peak's Wiggins, Lowe and 361 degrees Gordon, and perhaps Jeremy Lin of Xtep, domestic brands will have more head-to-head confrontation in the NBA in the new season, and "domestic sneaker derby" will also become the topic of the new season.
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