Spencer Haywood’s Nike stock could have made him a billionaire several times over, but a single decision by his agent turned potential generational wealth into a footnote in sports business history.
Stock Be Gone
Despite having told the story differently in the past, the basketball pioneer recently disclosed on the “All the Smoke” podcast that his early equity stake in Nike would be worth approximately $2.7 billion today.
Haywood became Nike’s first basketball endorser in 1972 when founder Phil Knight was building the company from the ground up in Portland. Knight, facing the same capital constraints that most entrepreneurs encounter in their early years, structured Haywood’s deal around equity rather than cash. The arrangement made strategic sense for both parties: Knight conserved limited resources while Haywood secured ownership in a company positioned in his geographic market, as he played for the Seattle SuperSonics.
The partnership represented more than just a shoe deal. Haywood was helping Knight establish credibility in basketball at a time when Nike was primarily known for running shoes. The company had just launched the Nike Bruin, its first basketball shoe, and needed an NBA player to validate the product.
Hey check this out Nike first advertisement ever 1973 in Seattle Super Sonics and I did it for free. Spencer Haywood pic.twitter.com/WgeLbEMV
— Spencer Haywood (@SpencerHaywood) January 19, 2013
However, Haywood said his agent, likely attorney Al Ross, who had successfully argued his Supreme Court case, viewed the arrangement through an entirely different lens. The representative was facing his own financial pressures and saw an opportunity to convert the uncertain equity into immediate cash.
“So I get the stock and my boy, that I let do the negotiation, he was struggling, you know have them bills taken cared of,” Haywood explained.
Adding, “… he was like convincing me that the shoe is never going to work.”
Trusting his agent’s judgment and wanting to concentrate on his playing career, Haywood made a decision that would haunt him for decades.
“So I said, ‘OK, man. I’ll give you the power of attorney. Let me just go play. I got to play. I got to focus on this game now because this is my chance,'” he recalled. “When I came back, he had sold that s–t. He said, ‘Man, I got the cash right here – $100,000.'”
That six-figure sum seemed substantial in the early 1970s, but it represented a catastrophic miscalculation that cost Haywood billions in future value. The transaction reflected a common pattern in early-stage investing: selling promising equity positions too early because the path to returns isn’t immediately clear.
Oddly, Haywood had a different story prior to this podcast intrview.
In an excerpt from his bio The Boston Globe published five years ago, Haywood stressed he wanted to dispel the rumors that this deal and the outcome were a billion-dollar mistake. But he admits that his agent’s selfishness cost him several million dollars.
“The deal was nowhere near no billions of dollars,” he said. “It was embellished. I didn’t lose no billions of dollars, but I would have been a pretty rich dude. He had the power of attorney that I had signed over to him because I couldn’t travel and do all of the work, so [I felt I] had to give him the power of attorney. While I was on the road, he just renegotiated and got his money.”
Haywood’s net worth is about $3 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, built from his NBA career and post-retirement ventures. At his peak, he earned roughly $350,000 a season — about $1.5 million today. A four-time All-Star, 1980 NBA champion, and 2015 Hall of Fame inductee, his wealth remains modest compared to what unclaimed Nike equity could’ve yielded — a lasting lesson on the power of long-term equity and how walking away too soon can become the most costly business decision.
