The Reebok Basketball President is bullish on the brand’s future thanks to Authentic Brands’ backing, Angel Reese’s star power, and more.
There are certain people in this world whose presence causes the room’s aura to shift. Shaquille O’Neal is definitely one of those people.
The 53-year-old basketball legend and business mogul rolled into the red carpet in Times Square Monday night for the premiere of the new Allen Iverson docuseries on Amazon‘s Prime Video. Shaq rocked a giant navy hoodie and a fresh pair of white Shaqs as he celebrated AI, his former foe on the court and current business partner off the court.
After making more than $285 million over his Hall of Fame NBA career, Shaq has made hundreds of millions more as the second-largest shareholder of Authentic Brands Group, the IP conglomerate that owns familiar companies like Brooks Brothers, Sports Illustrated, J.C. Penny, and Forever 21, and licensing rights to legends living and late like David Beckham, Muhammad Ali, Elvis Presley, and O’Neal. ABG purchased the rights to manage O’Neal’s name in merchandising and endorsements in 2015, and he later reinvested a lot of his earnings back in the company. Now, ABG claims $32 billion in annual retail sales across its brands and was valued at $20 billion following a funding round in January 2023.
ABG brought Reebok aboard in 2021 for $2.5 billion, and O’Neal and Iverson were named president and vice president of the basketball division in October 2023. Now, the duo works to restore the brand to the level of prominence it enjoyed during O’Neal and Iverson’s playing prime at the turn of the century. The brand’s sales increased from $1.6 billion in 2020 to $5 billion in 2024. When asked by Boardroom how hands-on he is in this role, Shaq initially replied “very” before elaborating.
“I do everything but nothing,” Shaq, who counts The Big Aristotle among his many nicknames, told Boardroom. “True leaders don’t micromanage. If I’m gonna start a media company, I’ll call you. You do all the work, I proofread it, say yes or no, and we move on from there.”
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O’Neal will begin his first year on ESPN this week, as TNT Sports has licensed his beloved Inside The NBA show to the network with the start of the NBA’s new media rights deal. Although he was accustomed to being on air weekly, sometimes twice a week, during the regular season, the show’s schedule is significantly reduced, with only 20 nights before the playoffs and just four appearances before Christmas.
“It could be worse. It could always be worse,” O’Neal said, “so I never complain. I do just do my job, and we’ll see what happens after that.”
His reduced television schedule gives him more time to focus on Reebok, which he wants to push forward with in many respects. Shaq called ABG’s retail reach of 1,500-2,000 stores globally a cheat code for the brand, helping Reebok’s distribution as it tries to regain its previous cachet and name recognition among the important youth demographic. The brand took quite a risk when it signed two high schoolers last year, Dink Pate, who’s scheduled to start the season in the G-League, and Nate Ament, a forward about to start his freshman season at the University of Tennessee and a projected top-five pick in next year’s NBA Draft.
But Reebok’s biggest swing to reach young consumers was giving Angel Reese her own signature shoe and apparel line as part of a multi-year contract extension signed last October after inking her to an NIL deal a year earlier. The WNBA‘s most popular player on Instagram has quickly become one of the most marketable, and sometimes polarizing, athletes in the women’s sports landscape. She was on the covers of last winter’s Vogue as well as the WNBA cover of the NBA 2K26, and recently graced the runway in this month’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. All sizes of Reese’s shoe sold out on Reebok’s website the day it was released on Sept. 18, proving that O’Neal’s bold bet on Reese was a smart one.
“She’s like AI,” he said, comparing her to the culturally iconic Iverson. “She’s going to do it her way, no matter what anyone says.”
Built on the legacies of Shaq and AI and bridged to the next generation with the help of Reese, Ament, and rising Chicago Bulls talent Matas Buzelis, O’Neal aims to bring Reebok basketball back to its prominent place in the industry.
“I remember when I was playing, we were never No. 1, but we were never No. 3,” he said. “Ever since we purchased Reebok, we’re up. Way up, with Reebok overall. So, I’m just trying to get Reebok basketball in a very comfortable place.”
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