Shaquille O'Neal & Jamie Salter on DUNKMAN, Acquiring Reebok, and the Shaq Brand

0:00LeBron. We'll call him out. You miss playing basketball still ever? No, never. Not against these cupcakes. Whoa! A lot of people don't want to be in these waters with the Necrodot. No! No! When I was with Reebok, we were never number one, but we were never number three. I'm telling you, this is going to be very, very important to Reebok's future. Fast forward, and Reebok is almost double since we bought the business. I wrecked his boat one time. I crashed it. We couldn't move the boat, so we just left it. Come on, let's take it. Oh! Oh! I got absolutely sick and tired watching the NBA dunk contest.

0:38Well, I didn't go to college either, Jamie. You're not that smart. No. Wow. Wow. I'm from New York, I have to say. I mean, my God. You're a funny guy. Strike that from the table. Oh! Just trying to let you know I have my name around forever.

0:59What's up, everybody? This is Rich Kleiman, and this is our August boardroom cover story. We are live at Fanatics, and today I have the honor to sit with the executive chairman and founder of Authentic Brands, Jamie Salter, and a generational icon, once-in-a-lifetime individual, Mr. Shaquille O 'Neal. Welcome, fellas. Thank you. Of course. Thank you. Jamie, everybody sees Authentic Brands. It's very much in the zeitgeist now. But tell me a bit of the path of how you got here and what the original concept was and what Authentic is today. So, look, when we started Authentic 17 years ago, there was other companies that were in the licensing business.

1:39And we sort of looked at them and we said, how can we do it better? We, you know, I always admire Steve Jobs. And, you know, he didn't invent the iPod, but, you know, Sony did, but he made it a lot better. And I think what was really, really important was, can we build a model that has duration and can it last a long time? And I think that that was the most important part, which means, can we buy brands and make sure that they last forever? And that was the important part. So we sort of had two parts of the business. We had lifestyle and we had entertainment. And entertainment was really important because when we looked at Disney, you know, Disney is a company that really has content.

2:21And then that content, you know, drives you to sort of the parks. And then from the parks, you actually buy a lot of merchandise. Right. So content drives commerce. And I think that's how we really built the business. And today, you know, the business is about a forty two billion dollars in annual retail revenue. 25 % of the business is entertainment based and 75 % of the business is lifestyle. Shaq, I was talking to LeBron yesterday about prior to his era in the league, there were people like yourself and Magic and MJ that had built business, but it wasn't as rampant without the league where people were focused on business.

3:01What was it like when you came into the league? You were a brand coming out of LSU and the world knew you, but what was your mindset on business off the court coming into the league and what was expected or not expected of an athlete at that point well just coming in i wanted to be a basketball player and i attend the conference with magic johnson and he tells me make sure you focus on business i had no idea what that was trying to focus on business i can remember going to the barnes and nobles and buying the dummies guide to starting your own business then texting back to my professor at marketing class gets on the board and he writes, you know, he started talking about branding.

3:39He said, there's good brands, there's really good brands, and there's great brands, and there's brands that live forever. I always wanted to live forever. And towards the end of my career, you know, I started to see my name fade away a little bit. And I'm walking down the street on Hollywood Boulevard, and there's Elvis everywhere. And there's, you know, Maryland Monroe stuff everywhere. And I'm like, how do these people live forever and they've been gone so while so started doing my you know research on companies there was two companies that I came across this company and another company that's out of business but when I met with the other company didn't like it when I met with him and his son they had a big argument in front of me respectful business dad son argument I was like I want to be with these guys so I partnered up with them you know for me it's just about you know continuing to you know do great business and you know just you know just trying to let you know I have my name around forever.

4:31So you said towards the end of your career, you felt like your name was fading away. I would say as a fan and somebody watching from afar, I never felt that. Was that a bit of like a paranoia in some ways? Because when you end your career, there is that feeling of like, I'm not going to be necessarily in the spotlight the way that I was, even though you were Shaq. And what did you change like about your approach from what you had to do? Did you become more of a learner and a listener, or did you take that same approach while you played? I wish my father were still here. He did an excellent job of raising me.

5:07He was an Army drill sergeant. Taught me to use fear as motivation. When I first came here, I was Shaq, Shaq, Shaq, Shaq, Shaq, Shaq, Shaq. And then towards the end of the career, they started talking about other people. And it got me a little scared. I agree with you. I wasn't going to go anywhere. But in my mind, I was like, I got to continue to do this. So, you know, signed up with a bigger and better company because I was doing everything by myself. And when I met with Jamie, he was like, man, you've done a wonderful job, but let me help you take it to the next level. And it's just about continuing to work, continuing to do great things.

5:40And the great thing about this partner, he's a great mentor, he's a great teacher, but he listens. I remember begging him 10 years in a row to buy Reebok. He was like, no, we're not ready. I was like, Jamie, we gotta get Reebok. And then one day he called me and said, you sitting down? I said, no, I'm laying down. And he said, your dreams finally come true. And he purchased Reebok. So he's a great partner, great mentor. We purchased Reebok. We purchased Reebok. Great partner, great mentor, great listener. And General Dwight Eisenhower said, the great leaders are the ones to have people that are smarter than you around you.

6:14One of the smartest businessmen I know. And I just found out a couple weeks ago that he never went to college. Because he called me and said, hey man, congratulating on getting your third master. He said, you know I never went to college. I was like, what? He's like, I said, how'd you do this? He said, hey, I just meet people, shake hands, and learn. So that's what I'm doing with him. Well, I didn't go to college either, Jamie. You're not that smart. I did go three years of college. I didn't go to school a lot, but I did go to three years. I never graduated, though. So the original concept, you were buying brands, right?

6:46And then when you look at companies like yours, usually the partnerships they have with individuals or of late icons, like you mentioned Elvis. Shaq was the first partnership that you had. When did you start thinking about moving into that sector of the business, and how did you guys approach that deal? So, you know, Marilyn Monroe is actually a good start into the entertainment business because what it taught us was social media. And, you know, a guy came into my office. His name was Adam Kronigold. You know, he's employee number three, and he says to me, by the way, do you know that Marilyn Monroe has 250 ,000 followers?

7:24And of course, back then I said, what's a follower? And he explained to me, you can advertise on Facebook or on Instagram for free and you can send messages to all your fans. So I said, well, that's kind of neat. You know, we should build a business sort of around this. You know, every time we buy a brand, we should focus on social media. And what happened when, you know, we had the opportunity to partner with Shaq, we really looked at the social media and we said, wow, there's a lot of fans with this brand. And more importantly, if we actually take those fans and we get Shaq behind not just the Shaq brand, but get Shaq behind other brands that we own and that we're going to buy.

8:15Oh, my God, we could move the needle. And that was, you know, today they're called creators, OK, and influencers. But back then, we didn't sort of know that. But we thought that we could actually move the needle because, as you know, advertising is incredibly expensive and we couldn't compete necessarily with the big guys. So we thought by attracting people like Shaq and getting, you know, a partnership with them and then looking really at the social, we could drive business. And of course, it worked. Yeah. And how do you structure those deals? Are they the same way that you structure deals with a brand or clothing line that you'll buy?

8:56Well, no, if we buy something like Reebok, you know, Authentic would buy 100 % of Reebok. Obviously, Shaq's a second largest independent investor behind me in Authentic Brands. But something like David Beckham or Shaquille O 'Neal or Kevin Hart, those are basically 50-50 joint ventures, partnerships, where we are partners together. and you know you're never look let's be honest okay you're not gonna tell Shaq what to do by the way Shaq's not gonna tell us what to do either so we have to agree on what we're gonna do you know what are we gonna go into the entertainment business are we gonna go into the name image and likeness business so we're gonna go into the merch business if Shaq doesn't want to do eyewear with a particular eyewear company work we're just not gonna do that.

9:48Vice versa, if Shaq wants to go into a crypto deal, we're going to say, Shaq, we don't like crypto deals. We don't think that's good for the business. We don't think that's good for you to put your name behind something like crypto, then we're not going to do that either. So it really is truly a partnership between both sides. And think of it like a marriage, but there's no divorce clause, right? Like we are clearly, we are married for the rest of our lives. And that is obviously difficult, right? Like, you know, you know, being married is not the easiest thing in the world, right? I'm married 39 years.

10:27And I think that that was important to Shaq, which is, you know, this is a family that he knows and respects, but, you know, is this really going to be forever. And here we are. What are we going on now? I think 10 years, 10 or 11 years. I mean, and we didn't even go through a seven-year itch, right? This has been an incredible partnership because we really are building this company together. And obviously, now we have more partners with David and with Kevin and many more brands, Champion, Guess. I mean, the list goes on and on. We have 50 plus brands in the portfolio. But I got to tell you, you know, he was there at the beginning.

11:14And it's been really, really good. And he does have a new idea every day. Why did you want to buy Reebok so badly? Because, you know, when I was with Reebok, we were never number one, but we were never number three. So, you know, Adidas purchased them and they just, you know, just kind of diluted them, you know, took all their contracts and just kind of, you know, left them in the fitness industry. And, you know, I wanted to, you know, bring them back. And the toughest job was to, you know, try to get the youngins to remember, you know, what a Reebok was. Back to what Jamie was talking about. We have this weird relationship where we come up with crazy ideas, three or four in the morning.

11:57He only told me no one time. I called him at 4 a.m. I said, Jamie, I got a great idea. He said, what? I said, I want to marry Marilyn Monroe. Shut the hell up, Shaq. And he just, I'm going to fuck you. And I wanted to call it Shaq Marilyn. He did send me an AI version of him getting married to Marilyn Rock. He's like, Shaq caught asleep. But no, we have a great partnership. So when the Reebok thing was bothering me, I would call him once a month, Jamie, I do Reebok. They're not ready. And then we went to F1 and Jamie saw the CEO of Adidas and me and Jamie cornered him and Jamie made him offer he could refuse.

12:34And then a couple of weeks later, Jamie woke me up before him. He's like, you're laying down. I'm like, yep. He said, we got a Reebok. And you serve as the president of the company. Yes. And AI is involved as well. Yes. So what have you guys started to do and put in motion to kind of change the perspective on how people looked at Reebok? I think, you know, we have a saying, let Reebok be Reebok. Let's be honest. Reebok was in sport in a major, major way prior to Adidas buying the company. So when we looked at Reebok, you know, sure, you know, a good portion of their business was in classics and sort of in the fashion world.

13:17And they sort of forgot about the sports business. Well, they didn't really forget about the sports business. Adidas really took a bunch of their silhouettes, okay, and took a bunch of their contracts, you know, whether it was with the NBA or whether it was with soccer or whether it was with hockey. But every step that Reebok was going in, Adidas said, no, no, no, let's focus on the bigger brand called Adidas and let's pull that from Reebok. By the way, made sense because if you look back Back in the day, Reebok was much bigger than Adidas. And today, Adidas obviously is one of the biggest footwear companies and clothing companies in the world in sport.

14:00So they got really everything that they needed to get out of Reebok. And then they said, OK, fine, we're going to sell Reebok. So the first thing that Shaq said is we're going back into sport and we're going back in a big way. We're going back into basketball. We're going back into hockey. We're going back into soccer. We're going into lacrosse. we're going into cricket we're going back into sport so it's not like you know it was that hard because we went into the archives we started pulling stuff out obviously we have to put a marketing budget together and we have to focus on you know obviously the best players and the best teams in the world and we've been doing that so Reebok uh fast forward Reebok I guess we're We're going on our fifth year now, and Reebok is almost double since we bought the business.

14:48It'll do close to$6 billion retail around the world today. And I think Reebok's incredibly respected since we bought it. It's come a long way, really fast. And I talked about Jamie being a great mentor. I can remember going into his office, asking for a big budget, and he quickly called me down and says, you're not Shaq. Shaquille O 'Neal, you're the president of basketball. I'm not giving you a big budget to prove yourself. So he gave me this size budget, and we had to come up with a new strategy that worked very, very well. Instead of going after the high-profile professional athletes, we started with the young 'uns and Angel Reese signed with us.

15:26We got a couple of players, and Angel Reese, she was doing phenomenal. But instead of bratenizing me and giving me what I wanted, he says, hey, I'm not talking to Shaquille O 'Neal, the president of Reebok, and you don't get 50 million for the budget, you get this amount. So that was a great learning experience for me. You know, it's interesting you say that because I was gonna ask you about your energy. You seem to have this like unbelievable rare energy to always be on when people see you. And the problem is, is people expect that from you. So that's gotta be a challenge at times as well. But you also have this name that is going to live on, that is bigger than you, a la a Marilyn Monroe.

16:10How much of the time do you still want to be Shaq? And how much of the time would you prefer to be Shaquille O 'Neal and let Shaq, the brand, kind of operate as its own? So I remember when I first came into the league, I was signed with a previous agent and taking me around to all these image consultants. And they all wanted me to be something that I wasn't. I went to this top image guy and I was disagreeing with him. He said, how come you don't like our plan? I was like, because image is reality. Yeah. So what you see with Killa Nibs, how I am in real life, I say hi, I help people in need, I take pictures with kids.

16:46I don't have an entourage, I handle business. So it's not that I'm acting. This is me from day one. I've been this way ever since my name stepped on the scene in 1989 when I went to a high school. High school, there was only 249 kids, 9 through 12. You know, I had a phase when I was very arrogant, but, you know, got really brought back down to earth, and this is how I am. So, you know, I appreciate the compliments, but this is not a hack. I'm really a nice guy until you test my waters. A lot of people don't want to be in these waters with the Megalodon. Yeah, I'm not trying to test. I'm not trying to test.

17:22That was scary, bro. Yeah, it was. You know, the idea, though, that Shaq and what that means, you understand that the power of that is one of these things now where he may not actually have to be present all the time for how powerful that brand is. I mean, look, there's no doubt about it. He's built an empire around him with us. And I can tell you that he's just so smart, right? Like he goes, you know, we're going back into basketball. And I like telling this story because, and he goes, I need X amount of money. And I said, you know, that's a lot of money. And I'm not giving you that kind of money, but we'll give you X.

18:12And he came back and he said, I got an idea. And I said, what's your idea? He said, I want to focus on women. We're going to go into women, to women's basketball, you know, WNBA, right? and I'm telling you, Jamie, there's going to be a surge. You just got to trust me on this. You got to remember, this is three years ago, right? WNBA, people weren't really talking about it. And there was Caitlin and he comes in and he says, we're going to sign, you know, this player. And her name's Angel Reese and we're going to sign her up. And I'm telling you, this is going to be very, very important to Reebok's future and to the game of basketball.

18:57And I really do think that Shaq really changed the WNBA because the money that was being paid to the WNBA players was kind of not fair. He believed that she could move the needle for our company and he could change the way people think of the WNBA. And I got to tell you, you know, my hat goes off to him because, you know, women in sport today, you know, three years ago, they're making substantially a lot more money. And I think Shaq has a lot to do with that. It's pretty genius because in a lot of ways you kind of set the bar by doing that for Angel, which then permanates to the rest of the women in the league.

19:43Talk about Dunkman, which I know Reebok is also tied into and something that you're passionate about. and it started as one thing and now it's evolved into something bigger. I got absolutely sick and tired of being involved as a player and as a fan watching the NBA dunk contest. My favorite dunk contest was in high school, Dominique versus Jordan. Guys made every dunk. They gave the fans a show. It was always my sentiment that us as NBA players, You know, all these kids, these corporate, they pay a lot of money to watch us play. Let's perform. First of all, in the last 15 years, we haven't had a real top guy like LeBron.

20:26We'll call him out. Zion Williamson, participate in the dunk contest. And then you got guys missing three or four or five dunks. So we wanted to put a league together. So, you know, I go to my team and say, hey, I want to start a league. because if you look online, there are kids that are not good enough to be in the NBA, but they're unbelievable dunkers, and they got a lot of views. They got a lot of eyes on them. So I was like, you know, maybe we need to put a lead together and compensate these guys. So we got 24 amazing dunkers, England, China, international players, and it's going to be great.

21:05You know, I've seen kids dunking better than NBA players. So, you know, we're going to put this league together, and I think we start Tuesday, and the winner gets$500 ,000. And if I see something impressive, I may call Jamie and say, can we put it up to a million? Because I know for a fact, when you look at these kids online, it'll be another kid for next season saying, oh, I can do that, and I can do that, and that's what makes this sport great. Because, again, when I went to the NBA All-Star game, I mean, forget the All-Star game on Sunday. I wanted to see the three-point shootout in the dunk contest.

21:39But for the last past 15 years, it's been terrible. Yeah. Yeah, growing up, that was just like must-see television. So how does it work? You said there's 24 dunkers, and they'll compete in, like, remote cities and move around. Well, we're probably just going to start season one in Atlanta, and then we'll probably have the championship somewhere. We haven't announced that, but, you know, it'll be dunking against each other, dunk off all the judges. or professional athletes, professional dunkers. So it'll be great. I don't want to give you too much, but we start Tuesday. So make sure you tune in.

22:11We're partners with TNT on the media side. Yes. And Eli Lilly is our biggest sponsor. Amazing. So there's obviously like - And now Dick's Sporting Goods too. Dick's Sporting Goods too. There's obviously the ability when you build something like that, when you build a new IP to kind of utilize the rest of the portfolio of brands. Is that part of that? That is definitely part of the ecosystem, which is, you know, our whole mandate with Dunkman is, okay, how do we turn this into a league? How do we turn it into a profitable business? But more importantly, you know, how do we help market other brands that are within our portfolio?

22:45So Reebok will have a very close relationship, obviously, with Dunkman and some of our other brands will also have a close relationship with Dunkman. So it definitely, you know, content drives commerce, And I'm going to continue to say that to you. And look, I think Fanatics Fest is a great example. You know, Michael has done an excellent job at building the Fanatics brand. And he is making some money, you know, along the way. But even if he broke even on Fanatics Fest, it's still a home run because there's just an enormous amount of content, which is driving the overall Fanatics business across his entire portfolio.

23:25So I think that's the sort of new world that we're living in. And I think there's, you know, there's few companies that are doing this and being really successful at it. And I think Fanatics is one of them. I think Authentic is one of them. But, you know, most companies are pay for play, right? They're not really running a true entertainment content side of the business. And I think that what's interesting is there's very few that are good at it, right? at the end of the day, the ones that are doing it. And, you know, I guess it's the studios that you would look at, right? Disney's good at it.

24:02You know, Paramount, I would say is, you know, they're okay, right? And Warner Brothers is okay. So I do think that doing this with Dunk Man, you know, you're going to see us, we have another show coming out with Amazon for Barneys, which is a new show that's coming out in 2028, which is with the same people that wrote Gossip Girl. So we're continuing to get into this content business. So you moved up to executive chairman from CEO, and I read that it was to focus a bit more on these type of deals and the overall partnership strategy of Authentic. You have Kevin Hart, David Beckerman, And of course, Shaq, how many of these can you do?

24:52Not a lot. Not a lot. Not a lot. Because, look, you got The Rock out there, amazing. You got LeBron James, amazing. The truth of the matter is there's a lot of components that go into it, right? You've got to remember, you're going partners with these people forever, right? Serena Williams. I mean, I could give you a list, but it's less than 10. and they got to want to do it. We have to want to do it. And it's forever. And I think that, you know, we'll do a few more of them, but we're not doing a ton of them. And I know that you know this, like they got to want to go to work. I won't mention the gentleman's name, but like we were going to do a business with him and he's bringing in a lot of money in the business.

25:42And I asked him a question. And I said, so you're going to get a lot of money from us one day. And, you know, we're going to do this deal and we're going to go 50-50 partners. So what are you going to do, you know, when you get all this money? He says, I can't wait to go to my boat. That is going to be the greatest day of my life. I'm going to go on my boat and I'm going to just like sit in the sun and I'm going to have a great time. And I said, you know, it was great to meet you. But not the right partner. But you're not the right partner. So you've got to be careful, right? Because you are writing a big check and now you're 50-50 partners with them and they got to want to work.

26:20So like David Beckham is the hardest working man at the World Cup. Shaquille O 'Neal is the hardest working man, in my opinion, in the NBA. I know he's not in the NBA anymore, but he's still a basketball star. I mean, he's on TV. He's doing DJ events. He's doing merch deals. He's doing licensing deals. and I think that that is critical. Now, it's got to be in your blood, as you know, right? You either want to do the work or you don't. You know, I get that question asked to me all the time, which is, Jamie, why are you not retiring? You've done fairly well in life. What would I do? Well, like, I don't play golf, right?