Jaylen Brown’s multi-million dollar war with Nike

For those who thought Jaylen Brown’s highly publicized war with Nike was over now that his exclusion from the summer Olympics USA Basketball team has begun to fade from recent memory, think again. Brown just made the next chess move in the standoff between the superstar and sportswear conglomerate to the tune of $50 million.

Brown decided to invest in himself by starting his own shoe line, called 741, which will soon drop the first signature shoe of Brown’s career, The Rover.

It’s hard not to view the move and its timing as anything other than a clap back to Nike’s perceived slight of Brown from this past summer at the Paris Games.

When the men’s USA basketball team decided to invite Derrick White to fill Kawhi Leonard’s shoes (pardon the pun) instead of Jaylen Brown with their open roster spot, many insiders believed it was due to Brown’s harsh criticism of Nike in recent years.

Brown, who was without a shoe endorsement the past two seasons, was wearing Nikes during that time on the court. However, he started removing the company’s signature logo, the Swoosh, from his game pairs shortly after Nike cut ties from Kyrie Irving for sharing an anti-semitic film post on social media.

“Since when did Nike care about ethics?” Brown posted on X/Twitter.

Were Brown’s comments a reference to the company’s alleged mistreatment of its employees, as reported in documentaries like Nike Sweatshots: Behind the Swoosh? It’s unclear, or maybe Brown was being intentionally vague.

Regardless, more shade throwing took place in November 2023 when Brown appeared on Andrew Iguodala and Evan Turner’s podcast, Point Forward, and said of his foot free agency, “I’m more inclined of following that sneaker disruptive kind of path.”

“A lot of deals that athletes get signed are kind of, like, stationary,” he added. “Here it is, cut and dry, no creative control, no control over your marketing, but no input, actually.”

Then, after Brown wasn’t invited to Team USA Basketball this past summer, Brown himself called Nike out with a X/Twitter post directed at Nike and asking, “this what we doing?”