Adidas, Nike, and Under Armour are widely considered the Big Three in the NBA shoe market, but that could change soon with Puma pouring in some money to return to play. Deandre Ayton, Marvin Bagley III, and Zhaire Smith have all signed with the brand, and now Jay-Z has been hired to be the creative director of Puma.
The company released a statement through Complex talking about the Jay-Z hire.
“We’ve been working with Roc Nation for quite some time. They’ve been great partners to us for several years. We’ve done many different deals with many different ambassadors,” Adam Petrick, Puma’s global director of brand and marketing, told Complex. When Puma approached him about this opportunity, JAY-Z felt it “was something he wanted to be a part of,” according to Petrick.
Earlier news had Jay-Z assuming a different role until ESPN's Darren Rovell cleared it all up.
Jay Z has not signed up for the role of president of Puma Basketball. The contract he signed was for creative director.
Puma is still going to have to produce some good shoes for this to be a big hit, but they now have the names associated to make their way back into the NBA market.
Bagley said the reason he signed with Puma was that he wanted to be different, and not like the rest of the players. For Ayton, he signed with Puma because they made the most sense financially, and that was a huge part of his decision. There hasn't been an exact total of how much the deal is worth, but some have reported that Bagley's deal is the largest rookie shoe deal since Kevin Durant came out of Texas.
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