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Ex-NBA Star Spencer Haywood Missed Out On $2 Billion With Nike

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James Foglio
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James Foglio Sports Editor

James is a Basketball Insiders contributor. He earned his bachelor's degree in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. James enjoys watching sports and helping gamblers win money.

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Sports Editor

Updated29 Sep 2023

Ex-NBA Star Spencer Haywood Missed Out On $2 Billion With Nike

NBA Hall of Famer Spencer Haywood revealed in a recent interview on Showtime Basketball’s “KG Certified” how he missed out on an estimated $2 billion with Nike earlier on in his playing career.

This occurred in 1973, when Haywood was a wing for the Seattle SuperSonics. Nike was founded by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight on Jan. 25, 1964, as “Blue Ribbon Sports.” The company officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1971.

Nike offered him stocks, as the company didn’t have the money to sign him. However, the NBA star had to sell the stock because his agent had the power of attorney over his finances and needed to pay his rent.

“I was on the road and he [my agent] had the power of attorney. He said, ‘I can’t pay my rent. I got all these things,” Haywood recalled.


“‘We need to cash this in. We need to cash the stock in so I can pay my rent and I can live a little bit. The shoe ain’t never gonna make it. You’ll get a contract with Adidas next year.’ So I said, ‘Hey, do what you gotta do.'”

More importantly, Spencer Haywood assumed Nike would go out of business in the years ahead.

“This is 1973! The joke was, that shoe is never gonna make it,” he added. “And the first time I wore the shoe, the players were walking up behind me while I’m playing and popped the shoe off. Step on the back of the shoe and the shoe would pop off. I was so discouraged by my shoe.”

Although he could have received $2 billion, the agent earns 10% of the share. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Interesting enough, Magic Johnson made the same mistake in 1979. Since Johnson went on to win five NBA championships, three Finals MVP awards, and three regular-season MVP awards, perhaps he messed up worse than Haywood.

As a matter of fact, Johnson could have made $5 billion from Nike alone.

NBA Hall of Famer Spencer Haywood missed out on $2 billion with Nike after selling stocks in 1973, thought the company would go out of business

Spencer Haywood, 74, was born on April 22, 1949, in Silver City, Mississippi. The NBA Hall of Famer’s family would have benefitted from those Nike stocks. He grew up in poverty on 12-hour shifts, as his family worked as sharecroppers.

His mother raised 10 children while picking cotton at $2 per day in Mississippi.

During his senior year at Pershing High School in Detroit, Michigan, he led the Doughboys to the state championship in 1967. After graduating, Haywood attended Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad, Colorado.

Haywood was selected to play on the United States men’s basketball team in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and won a gold medal for Team USA.

In 1969, Haywood joined the Denver Rockets after they selected him in the ABA draft out of the University of Detroit Mercy. In his rookie 1969-70 season, Haywood led the ABA in scoring and rebounds, averaging 30 points and 19.5 boards per game.


The 6-foot-8 forward helped the Rockets win the ABA’s Western Division title. Haywood was named ABA Rookie of the Year and ABA MVP his first professional season. Of course, the Mississippi native became the youngest MVP recipient at the age of 21.

During the 1970 ABA Playoffs, Denver defeated the Washington Caps in seven games in the Western Division semifinals before losing in five games to the Los Angeles Stars in the division finals.

Furthermore, Haywood holds the following all-time ABA records for a season — 1,637 total rebounds, 986 field goals made, and 19.5 rebounds per game. He also won the ABA’s 1970 All-Star Game MVP that year after recording 23 points, 19 rebounds, and seven blocks for the West team.

In the 1979-80 NBA season, Haywood won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers against the Philadelphia 76ers.

Additionally, his No. 24 jersey was retired by the SuperSonics during a halftime ceremony on Feb. 26, 2007. Likewise, his No. 45 was retired by the Detroit Mercy Titans in February 2016.

In September 2015, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

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