A football team has yet to give receiver Odell Beckham Jr. a massive contract. A shoe company has.
Beckham has a new deal with Nike. According to NiceKicks.com (via SportsBusiness Daily), Beckham will make more than $29 million over five years and up to $48 million over eight years. In contrast, he’ll make only (only?) $1.839 million in 2017 from the Giants.
That said, Beckham eventually will be making a lot more from football. In 2018, his salary spikes to $8.459 million. An extension would push his compensation even higher.
While Beckham is making more than any other NFL player on a shoe deal, basketball players do much, much better. LeBron James, for example, is believed to have a lifetime Nike deal worth more than $1 billion. Michael Jordan, retired for years, still made more than $100 million from Nike in 2016. (He made $94 million in salary during 15 years as a player.)
While those are extreme examples, Beckham now holds the NFL high-water mark for shoe deals. Which ultimately provides even more proof of the reality that athletes should play basketball or baseball instead of football, if they can.