YouSaid · the spoken record

Maverick Carter

lines on the record: 59
first: 2016-05-30
most recent: 2016-05-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I mean, yeah, we own beats. If you consider that tech, but I don't think we've made any specific tech investments like everyone else in the world. We have not started a tech fund. Probably won't do that either, but we have not invested in anything tech.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Learned that just like in marketing and in entertainment, the best story wins, the person who can really tell the most authentic, most relatable, biggest story wins. And that's marketing. That's also an entertainment. You know, people love stories and people want to attach themselves to stories. And whoever can tell the best story, you and I can both create the same exact product. But if you're able to tell a better story about your product and why your product works. You're a better marketer than me. And entertainment is the same thing, whether it's a writer, a producer, who can craft and mine the best stories wins.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we have, I mean, we have a TV show that's in the third season called Survivors and Morse on Stars. We have another TV show that we were already producing for Disney called Becoming Show that we're shot now for CNBC. So we have a lot of TV shows going. So we're always interested in projects. Unique thinking, our storytelling to the project, whether that be helping craft the actual, what the show is about, and or what the marketing of the show is about. And it has to be authentic to us, and we have to be able to bring value to it and really create something that people can get a sense of who we are as producers and really tell a story that's related and also relatable to us and also we think will be relatable to the people who want to watch it”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, maybe good. When you look at taking that, so Turner, like you said, invested in uninterrupted as well, how much does that, I guess, give you freedom to explore new projects, right? I mean, I would imagine with any venture money, right, you now all of a sudden have financing to go do whatever it is that you want to do. But how aggressive do you want to get, what kind of projects are kind of top of mind for you besides maybe a space jam or something like that?”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, Warner Brothers is the investor. Warner Brothers in our entertainment company, Spring Hill and Uninterrupted. So they are our partner and we have a great relationship. Obviously, they own the Looney Tunes and Space Sham IP. So maybe we will do something, maybe.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe you're doing that. That's what everyone's saying. A lot of them, that's a big story. That's a big story. Okay, and that's all because you have a relationship with the studio, right? I mean, what's yeah, Warner Brothers is Warner Brothers Investor”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe we're going to do it. Maybe you're doing that. That's what everyone says. Everyone says. That's a big story. That's a big story. In the movie business, it takes a long time to pull a thing off, but nothing's set yet. But maybe we'll do it.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He did not take acting classes, but you know, he worked with Judd and he listened to Judd, and Judd gave him instruction and do it like this and say it like this and look this way. And that's what he's an athlete. That's what he wants to do. He wants to be coached. He wants to be have a great coach put him in the right position to succeed and let his talents kind of shine through. So I think movies is definitely something he wants to do as his career winds down and when he's done playing.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think for us, it's more about strategically what are the next things and building a business. For him personally, it's, you know, obviously he's very laser focused on being the best basketball player in the world today. But as he thinks about what he does next, because he's no longer in his third or fourth year, he's in his 13th year, he's kind of on the backside of his career. He's played more years and he's got left to play. So as he thinks about what he's going to do next, I mean, acting is a thing that, you know, he's, as you said, to his first movie, he's done lots of commercials, some longer things digitally, but it's definitely something that he thinks about and thinks about doing and wants to pursue because I think he enjoys it. You know, as I tell people, you know, being an actor and when I watched him on set, he's coachable. That's what he, you know, that's what he's done his whole life. He's talked to someone standing on his class.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did his thing, but Judd really set him up and Amy set him up, and him and Bill were great teammates, and Judd was a great coach in helping him put him in the right position to succeed.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amy's hilarious Judd Appetal's, I mean, LeBron would tell you he's sitting here, Judd Appetal, much like a great coach, put him in the right position and set him up to succeed. He just”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think you know what we did is unique. I think it will remain unique. I think that it was the right brand, the right of joint venture with the right athlete at the right time. And I think, you know, what obviously what Michael Jordan did with Nike is phenomenal. I mean, he built a brand and a business that's going to last a lifetime and probably many lifetimes. LeBron's timing of coming behind Michael in up distance to Nike to see what you can do with an athlete really helps. So I think what we did is always going to be unique. I think it was the right timing by Hula Bronze, by where Nike is, by what Michael Jordan had did. And so I think it'll always be unique whether other athletes will do it or not. I hope so. Be great.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The reason we decided to do that is because LeBron is 13 years into his career, already built a fantastic business wearing a proud business as a partner with Nike. And he's just seen it as a place that he wasn't interested in going anywhere else. Nike had been his partner forever and he wanted them to be his partner forever and they wanted to also. And we went to them with the idea of a deal that lasts a lifetime for LeBron and they were totally with it. And after some back and forth, we landed in a place that really worked for both of us. And we thought that it was a deal that would satisfy Nike would satisfy him and leave us both with a lot of upside to really. The goal there is to build a business that lasts for a very long time.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I'm not reading a script, it's just how I feel. It's what we do. It's what I do every single day. It's what I've been doing since my days at Nike is really, that's what Nike does. They get with athletes. They tell you a story about an athlete and they sell you a sneaker. That's what they do. I've been doing that my whole life. So that's what I know.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anyone that has a story, any athlete that has a story that they think is worth getting deeper into and getting more insight into it or is entertaining or That they just feel like they need a place where they can go deeper. We are willing to work. That was good marketing, right?”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have athletes. We've worked with, oh man, the exact number I don't know, but it's somewhere around 100 athletes that we've worked with to tell stories and working with many more.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Has to cover a lot of stories and a lot of athletes and have to be very broad. So if an athlete, if Draymond Green wants to get deeper and really tell a deeper and get more insightful into his story or to that specific game or that specific moment, we're the place for that. But he still is going to talk to the Golden State Press every single day, the press following the Warriors and the NBA every single day. And the media looks at us as complimentary because sometimes when we have those deeper stories and those more topical things that happen, they use it to help complement the stories that they're writing anyway.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You guys want to do this? We have zero issue with me. The media looks at us as complementary to what they do because they, I mean, it's not like we're telling athletes to stop talking to the media or don't do it. But then if athletes want to get deeper because the media”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talking Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, But I mean, obviously traditionally, the media has been the one to convey that message. And do you feel any, like, is there tension at all with the media, with the fact? I mean, because you guys aren't the only folks around to do this. Derek Jeter has, I believe it's called the players' tribune, right? Similar idea. It's a website where athletes are really posting their own stuff and there's obviously Twitter now and Facebook. Do media folks have an issue with the fact that you guys want to do this?”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is designed to be a globally distributed network that athletes can come. We will help them create and develop their stories and help them create and develop their voice and then get those stories and voices amplified and distributed. And it's not about cutting out the media. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, that's we use media as a place to distribute. We use traditional media sources, whether it be bleach report and turner or ESPN as distribution sources.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, like the biggest story in sports that we had seen a while, and it was just people were applauding it and loving it. Now, obviously, part of it was he was going back to Cleveland. But the way it was done and how the letter was written. And it was still, he was controlling his messages in a different medium. But in doing that, when we got on the plane, literally we started talking about how do we create a network. And when I say a network, a digital network, where athletes can come and help and we can build a team of professionals that can help them develop their stories, get those stories distributed and amplified. And those stories, whether they're a 30 second story about today, we just published a piece with John Wall going into surgery and he's talking about his surgery, talking about why he's getting a surgery, talking about what it's going to take to recover. And, you know, it's a minute-long story, and we help him develop that. Or if it's a documentary, an athlete wants to do or a story that they want to talk about. So uninterrupted.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And our team got together. We had new members of the team then, Adam Mendelson, who works with us on all of our communications, was a big part of helping us think that through and as a part of our brain trust had joined the team after the decision to help me think through communications in a more strategic way. And we decided to do that. And in doing that, we released that on Never Forget the Day on a Friday at like noon and at 2 o'clock. We were on a plane flying to Brazil to watch the World Cup final between Argentina and Germany. And literally in the two hours because the letter got published at noon, we were on the plane by two. So, you know, the flight, we weren't even going to be able to see what the letter was the reaction. But in two hours, it became...”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thing since then. I mean, I guess it probably was before then. I'm not sure. But we started uninterrupted because for those of you who don't know, in 2014, actually, LeBron decided to switch teams again and go back to the team he had previously played for after four years, four great years and phenomenal years in Miami that led to two championships and two MVPs and four finals appearances. He decided to go back and we decided again that he wanted to control his message. We just actually chose a different medium and we chose to publish a letter that he spoke in Lee Jenkins wrote for Sports Illustrated.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's all these Make their own announcements, right? You watch ESPN now. Every high school top 100 high school kid in America in football and basketball, ESPN actually broadcast them picking their school. And they have the hats and they pick the school. It's funny after LeBron said that all the high school kids started saying that like, you know, taking my talents at the University of Alabama, I'm taking my talents to Michigan. And so controlling your message became a big.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I wouldn't say cutting the media out. I would say, you know, that was back in 2010. We just spoke about the decision. Since that moment, controlling your message is like, it's what everybody does. I know.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, I thought about it. I thought about it from how can I get better? How can I think things through differently? How can I better do my job? I thought about it from, you know, LeBron, again, is also a friend, seeing a friend just like everywhere I went, the media was, I mean, writing him like he was some bad person just because he decided to switch teams and control his message. But yeah, for sure, I thought about it and spent a lot of time dealing with it and thinking it through. And I still think about it sometimes for sure. It's the only way to continue to get better and think things through.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What that guy thinks the 17 year old kid in Houston who buys LeBron James sneakers, buys jerseys, that's our consumer in this case, but we have to pay attention to all three. And that's the biggest thing I learned coming out of that is there's three different perceptions. We had the biggest growth that year in consumer, but his media perception was way down. Now, in a perfect world, you want all three to be high. Of course, yeah. That's the holy grail, right? But you realize over time that there's levers on three of the three of those, they go up and down and you have to pay attention to all three. Just because the consumer perception is up and public perception is down, that's not a good thing. That's not a good thing because eventually the public perception could start to erode at the consumer perception. So that's the biggest thing I learned. We got through it.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Media says, yeah, but then there's consumer perception, which is actually the folks who By the product or the brand or watch the show or pay attention to whatever the thing that we're talking about in this case, it was the people who watch NBA basketball, people who buy LeBron James sneakers, people who buy LeBron James Jersey. And in fact, that year I tell people which for whatever reason is surprising to people, but then they go back and go, oh, that makes sense. We had the largest growth in LeBron's brand at Nike was that year of the decision. And I tell people it's pretty simple because Guy writing an article in The New York Times.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Once one person goes that way, it's like dominoes, it all goes one way. So the media went completely south on LeBron. There's public perception, which is, you know, the perception of the public at large or the people who pay attention but don't really consume, in this case, basketball or consume LeBron James sneakers or LeBron James jerseys. Fayette probably went south because they're influenced a lot by the media.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I learned mostly from it because I was extremely involved in it and I watched everything that was going on around not just the media, but I watched, I looked at the decision as a wholeistic thing and what happened. The thing that I learned most was that in business, there's three perceptions and you have to pay attention to all three and you have to mind all three and you have to, but you can't make decisions off of any singular perception. Those perceptions are the media's perception of a person or a brand or a product. The media tends to all kind of go one way.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Watch him say he decided to take his talents and go play for the Miami Heat, which became a phrase that everyone uses now. And he got tons of backlash. I got tons of backlash. People were frankly upset. The media went totally south on him. He had won the MVP two years previous to the decision, the year of the decision. He actually lost it and then he won it two years after that. I think he deserved the MVP that year, but the media votes on the MVP and they had completely Turn their back on him. But, you know, he went to Miami. The team became kind of the villain of the NBA. And it created a big hoopla. I mean, it was like the biggest story in sports that we had seen in a long time. And the thing that...”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We sold it to the sponsors. That was Bang, University of Phoenix. There might be a third one I'm forgetting. Excuse me, but yeah, we sold it in ESPN let us own it all because we didn't take it as a profit. We gave all of the money to the Boys and Girls Club. We donated $3.5 million. LeBron on TV, 10 million viewers watched him stay.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're from Akron and Cleveland is 40 minutes up the road. And he decided to go to Miami and play for the Miami Heat. And when he decided to switch teams, we decided we wanted to control the message on how the message went out and what he talked about and the way we decided to do it was with ESPN. We decided to make it into, it didn't start off with making it into a TV show that they ended up doing. But what we wanted to do is, A, we wanted to control the message, and B, we wanted to control the media around it and give that money to the boys and girls club. We sold all the media in the hour-long special. Which guarded three and a half million dollars”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, for those who don't know, it was when LeBron decided to in 2010 decided to switch team the team they played on for seven years at the Cleveland Cavaliers.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When they landed, I mean, there was media from around the world all over the place, and every day they went to practice and they were on NBC, and the guys all had the headphones on or around their neck. And Jimmy called me and basically said, you're right, and I want you to be my partner in Beats. And we've been partners in it all the way up to the acquisition and still work on the brand and help in sports marketing. So that was the”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he says, Well, what should we do? And that's when I said, I have an idea if we'd like to take 15 pair, give them to LeBron and let him gift them to the U.S. Olympic team because they're on their way to Beijing. They're going to stop in San Fran and go to Beijing and let's see what happens. And we did it. And of course, the guys landed in Beijing and the headphones were everywhere. I mean, you know, the men's USA basketball team in Beijing and China were basketball is by far and away the number one sport.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, this is pre beats. This is before And Jimmy started telling me about what he was going to do with the headphones and music and the Universal Music Group. And I said, Jimmy, I think there's one space that you should think about. And he said, what is it? I said, sports. And I said, you know, athletes wear hip bones in and out of the arena every single game. And if you can get your headphones on those guys, you may never have to buy advertising. I said, that's a big, you know, fashion has become a big place. They use the back of house for an arena like a runway now. Everyone takes pictures.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen to it. I said, Jimmy, I'm not a big music listener all the time in headphones, but LeBron is going to take a pair and see what he thinks. He said, sure. So he gave me one pair. This is before, again, any beats had never been sold. No one had seen them in retail. They were just working on. LeBron loved them. He thought they were cool. Thought they looked great.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And one day I was sitting in his office talking about the movie Working in the Movie in 2008, and he showed me this headphone. He says, you know, me and Dre are working on this headphone. What do you think of it? Because Jimmy's a smart guy. And what Jimmy does is anyone in his office that he thinks could have an idea, be smart. He shows you things and listen to this song. Or what do you think of this? He likes people's opinions. So I looked at it and I said, you know, it looks great aesthetically. It looks beautiful”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Beats came after Canadale, but it was kind of in the same vein. That in 2008, we made a documentary called More Than a Game, which is a great documentary about LeBron and his four best friends from high school and kind of their road from being freshmen when they played one year with me all the way to senior year and all the things they went through. And it's really like a Hollywood movie, but it's a true story. And our co-executive producer was Jimmy IVE, obviously Jimmy is a legendary guy in the music business.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it was more leveraging the value that we bring to the table to take a position in a brand that has a chance for growth and bringing what we have to the table and contributing to that growth and then capturing the value.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was my moment where I went, man, this fucking idea that I have, it actually can work. It's actually real. Forget the money. I didn't even, LeBron made a lot of money. I made money, but I was like. Money, it actually proved my theory”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or Nike, but smaller brands like Canadale, and the first one we found was Canadale, and the reason we wanted to do that one, LeBron started training on a bike in the offseason. He still does. He rides a bike to keep himself in shape, but to stay off his legs. And I said, the company I wanted to buy actually was Schwinn. But we ended up buying Canada. We bought it with a private equity firm. We bought into it. They already owned it. They had owned it for a couple years. We bought into it. I launched this whole sports marketing plan for them around other athletes, brought some other athletes in. We did this charity event with LeBron caught a bikeathon. And lo and behold, three years later, we sold the company to Dural Industries for a sizable profit. And we got that award. The turnaround of the year.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Most people haven't heard about, but it's an award for companies that get bought out. In 2009, we actually got the trophy for turnaround of the year for this company called Canandale, which is a bike company. So it reminded me of kind of my aha moment, which was, you know, as a part of this long-term strategy, I thought that we had the opportunity, everyone talks about sponsorship deals and endorsement deals. First off, we only talked about them as partnerships, meaning we want long-term partners who are going to build something great together, but also besides that, I thought there was an opportunity to take an athlete like LeBron and get into position that whether we put up money or we put up his name likeness and image or we put up his time, my time, my thinking, the thinking I brought from Nike, which at the time wasn't very valuable. Today it's become a little bit more. But if we put those things up, we could put ourselves in a position to have equity in companies, not gigantic companies like Coca-Cola.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where you were just like, wow, this, I know what I'm doing. Yeah, for sure. And it's funny because I was just at our office. We still have an office in Akron, which is like our family office and manages all of the kind of back-of-house ventures and things that we do now. And I was happening to be walking around LeBron's office. And I saw this trophy that he had in his office. And it's from 2009. And it's from the buyout awards, which...”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I took the strategy and placed my money on LeBron James's dedicated. He's committed. He's smart. He's talented. He's a damn good batch, but he's going to be around a long time. So we're not going to just do a money grab. We're going to be strategic about it. So worked with a team of people who could really help me think through and put together guardrails of things. And when I say things, meaning deals, press opportunities, anything that fit into the strategy in which we were trying to get to the place we were trying to go, which was long-term and sustainable for LeBron.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Your point is actually wrong. That makes it tougher because The fact of the matter is the opportunities that are coming in aren't necessarily opportunities that are ripe for LeBron and what we were trying to build. And there's two strategies when you take on the role that I decided to take on when I left Nike. There's two strategies. There's what I call the money grab, which is just take every deal that comes to the door and get as much money as you can Or there's being strategic about it and building out a plan that will last a lifetime and be around for a long time. But you have to make your bet on do you think the athlete in this case, LeBron or any athlete or star or person that you're helping manage? Do they have the talent and skill to be around a long time or are they going to be around a year or two and then fizzle out?”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just a lifetime relationship. We'll get to that a little bit. It's only going to last a lifetime. But what I took mostly from that is, again, what I said is like how to take a brand An athlete who is a person marry the two and tell stories that really drive the brand and also are authentic to the athlete. And really, Phil Knight has a great quote where he says, never stop hearing the voice of the athlete, which is something that I really took away from. Like if you take a brand and you bring in athletes and marry the two and tell a story that's not just good for the brand, but also good for the athlete, then that's where you get ultimate success. Gotcha.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A little bit so it's not like you've a little What did you learn? I work with Nike every single day still. So we have a little.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two points that kind of led to He's in charge of LeBron James Brand ultimately, but I help build the business around it. But the first part was when he was a senior, he said, whatever shoe company I signed with, you have experience, you've been an intern, you've worked as a consultant, I want them to hire you to be my guy at the company. Because he hired an agent. And then after two years into the NBA when I had been working at Nike, he called me and said, hey, I want to change things. I want to do business different than every other basketball player. The agent that I have is not working for me, so I want you to leave Nike and come work with me and help me figure out my business and what I should and shouldn't be doing.”
2016-05-30 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: LeBron James's business manager, Maverick Carter · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT