The NBA and WNBA have come to an agreement on a 12 year extension with Nike, continuing their partnership after over five years of doing business together.
NBA & WNBA Extend With Nike
Nike announced on Tuesday night that they will be continuing their long partnership with the NBA and WNBA in the first extension since switching from Adidas in 2015.
The NBA and Nike go hand in hand now more than ever before and it is hard to find anything basketball related without the iconic Nike tick logo on these days.
Speaking after the new deal was confirmed, Sal LaRocca – the NBA’s president of global partnerships – opened up on how easy a decision it was to extend:
“We had common alignment from the very beginning, a common and shared goal to continue growing basketball on a global basis, across boys, girls, grassroots elite players, and of course, all through the NBA,” said LaRocca.
“So it was an easy decision, from our perspective, to, in fact, extend with Nike for another 12 years.” The NBA refused to disclose any specific finances in the deal.
Nike has been the sole uniform and merchandise provider of the NBA since 2015 and the new extension will take the partnership until at least 2036.
Tanya Hvizdak is the vice president of athlete sports marketing with Nike and she believes that the WNBA and the NBA holds the key to Nike’ future.
“When you think about just the future of sport, this is going to be such a foundation for us,” Hvizdak said. “The growth of the game [of basketball] has been massive. You saw everything around the participation and the viewership coming out of the Olympics and the NBA is just going to be an opportunity around that 365 consumer demand, to continue to build off of that.”
The partnership is good news for NBA and WNBA fans as well, with Nike planning to release new, exciting content soon as the new season gets underway this week.
