Big Baller Brand: When Athlete Entrepreneurship Goes Wrong

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Friends,

Even as the COVID-19 global pandemic continues to shake the sports world upside down, three things in life remain certain: Death, Taxes, and top NBA Draft prospects signing lucrative endorsement deals before ever recording an NBA point, assist or rebound.

First up — LaMelo Ball, who announced a multi-year endorsement deal with PUMA yesterday.

Financial details weren’t disclosed, but the agreement is believed to be five-years in nature with a signature shoe on the way — something not all top prospects are awarded.

(📸 / Complex)

Since relaunching their basketball division in 2018, and naming Jay-Z as their creative director, PUMA has continuously flashed the cash and built out an impressive roster of basketball players to endorse their brand.

Basketball Roster Includes:

• RJ Barrett

• Skylar Diggins-Smith

• Deandre Ayton

• Kyle Kuzma

• Danny Green

• Demarcus Cousins

• Terry Rozier

• Kevin Knox

• Michael Porter Jr.

Outside of basketball, Jay-Z and PUMA have also recruited a wide-range of superstar athletes and celebrities like Neymar and J. Cole to join the brand.

That’s great for PUMA, but let’s talk about the elephant in the room — what happened to Big Baller Brand?

The story of Big Baller Brand is almost unbelievable — from a self-proclaimed billion dollar valuation, to marking down merchandise 90% garage-sale style, Big Baller Brand has had a tumultuous 4-year run.

Rather than run through every detail, which might last longer than LiAngelo Ball’s career at UCLA, let’s attack this timeline style.

April, 2016 - Big Baller Brand Is Founded

(📸 / USA Today)

LaVar Ball officially launched the Big Baller Brand website in early 2016.

Their mission statement:

March, 2017: LaVar’s $1 Billion Dollar Ask

At this point, Big Baller Brand was only manufacturing, marketing, and selling apparel — when asked what it would take to recruit all three of his sons (Lonzo, LiAngelo & LaMelo) to the same brand, LaVar replied:

Nike’s response?

They called LaVar the "worst thing to happen to basketball in the last hundred years."

May, 2017: Lonzo Ball Unveils His Signature Shoe

(📸 / Big Baller Brand)

Perhaps in response to being rebuffed by Nike, and promising to become “their competition”, LaVar and Lonzo Ball announce their first signature BBB shoe — The ZO2, priced at a whopping $495.

When asked why they were priced so high, given top basketball shoes on the market rarely cross $200, Lavar responded in the only way he knows how:

Oh yes, how could I forget — your purchase came with no returns, refunds, or exchanges.

Social Media laughed accordingly.

August, 2017: JAY-Z Voices Support For Big Baller Brand

Here’s what JAY-Z said regarding the launch of Big Baller Brand and his support for LaVar’s entrepreneurial vision:

You can listen to the entire quote below, directly from the Rap Radar podcast.

August, 2017: LaMelo Ball Launches The MB1

(📸 / SLAM Magazine)

With the vocal support of JAY-Z, the Ball family doubled down and made LaMelo Ball the first high school athlete ever to have his own signature basketball shoe — the MB1, priced $100 cheaper than Lonzo’s shoe at $395.

But what about college eligibility?

Despite LaVar Ball’s declaration that it “won’t be a problem”, the MB1 launch kicked off a worldwide amateur basketball tour that would take LaMelo from Southern California to Lithuania and Australia — all between the ages of 16 to 18.

January, 2018: Better Business Bureau Calls Out BBB

As order delivery times started to stretch into weeks and months, rather than days, frustrated customers started to flood the brands Better Business Bureau page with negative reviews.

When asked about the brands F rating, LaVar Ball said he thought the “Better Business Bureau was out of business” and that “Yelp! is more important.”

As of today, their Better Business Bureau page is still active but has hundreds of negative reviews similar to the one below.

February 6, 2019: Shipments of ZO2.19s Delayed

(📸 / Sole Collector)

I’ll keep this one short — the third iteration of Lonzo Ball’s signature show released in October 2018, yet five months later not a single pair had shipped yet.

The Big Baller Brand blamed it on “production issues” and announced their were no refunds — instead, customers would receive a T-shirt or hoodie for their troubles.

March, 2019: Lonzo Ball’s Money Goes Missing

As if things weren’t already bad, they got much worse in March of 2019.

Lonzo Ball officially parted ways with Alan Foster, his business manager and co-founder of Big Baller Brand, after he allegedly embezzled $1.5M from Ball’s personal and business accounts (Source).

(📸 / TMZ)

What’d Lavar have to say about his friend stealing Lonzo’s money (Source)?

Lonzo filed a lawsuit against Foster shortly after, which is still TBD, but Foster is also being investigated by the FBI for fraud against multiple other business entities including the Big Baller Brand (Source).

March, 2019: Lonzo Ball Covers Up His “BBB” Tattoo

After years of dealing with defective shoes, inadequate company logistics, too many customer complaints to count, and now over $1.5M in missing money, Lonzo Ball was fed up.

In March 2019, Ball seemed to publicly breakup with the Big Baller Brand by covering up his “BBB” tattoo.

(📸 / TMZ)

July, 2019: Big Baller Brand Goes On Discount

Beaten and bruised from consecutive years of disappointment, LaVar Ball took his excess inventory and went to work — at a local high school volleyball tournament.

The brands apparel and merchandise sold at a 90% discount, which only further signaled their lack of financial footing.

September, 2019: Lonzo Ball Slams His Shoes

As if the world wasn’t already aware, Lonzo Ball admitted in September 2019 that his original ZO2’s were defective.

In case you forgot, the Lakers famously asked Lonzo to stop wearing the ZO2’s early in his career due to frequent injuries occurring.

October, 2019: Alan Foster Countersues LaVar Ball

Since everyone knows one lawsuit is never enough, Alan Foster, who allegedly stole over $1.5M from Lonzo Ball, submitted a countersuit in October 2019.

The catch?

Foster went after LaVar, not Lonzo, claiming the father used company money to fund his lavish lifestyle.

Here’s a direct excerpt from the lawsuit (Source):

October, 2019: Alan Foster Redirects The BBB Website

In October 2019 customers discovered that the Big Baller Brand website had been redirected to Alan Foster's personal website, seemingly confirming previous reports that the brand was “dead.”

Obviously, LaVar Ball said that wasn’t the case (Source).

As of today, the Big Baller Brand website is still active.

They continue to sell their typical $100 Bucket Hats and a wide-range of $195 shoes, but with LaMelo Ball signing a 5-year deal with Puma and Lonzo exploring footwear options with Nike, the business appears to be dead.

(📸 / Big Baller Brand)

In the end, it’s unfortunate — I still strongly believe athlete entrepreneurship is a trend we’ll continue to see in sports, but execution matters and the Ball family had none of it.

P.S. - The majority of this breakdown, including the timeline and relevant quotes, was directly sourced from a much longer and detailed Complex Sports article — you can check it out here.

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