Speaker 1: Oh good, come on, core, or he held it out
Speaker 1: there so high. See if you can do this?
Speaker 2: Is like when you had the pro players and they
Speaker 2: hold their basketball caps and they're just toying with the
Speaker 2: little kids.
Speaker 3: Even for longtime observers, there's something unique about what they're
Speaker 3: witnessing this season in the NBA, sports commentators can barely
Speaker 3: contain their excitement. Twenty year old Victor wembin Yama has
Speaker 3: big time potential. The French basketball phenom has quickly made
Speaker 3: his mark on the NBA, and when you watch his
Speaker 3: combination of size, skill, and athleticism, it's clear he is
Speaker 3: a sensational talent and all that talent translates to big money. Wemby,
Speaker 3: as he is known to his fans, is on a
Speaker 3: trajectory that could lead him to be the first professional
Speaker 3: basketball player to earn one billion dollars on the court.
Speaker 3: And earning all this money just from playing the game
Speaker 3: is a big deal. While several other basketball players have
Speaker 3: hit this figure through off court ventures like endorsements and investments,
Speaker 3: Wemby could be the first to do it on the hardwood.
Speaker 3: When you talk to him about all this hype, as
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's Randall Williams recently did It's clear he knows he's
Speaker 3: got his work cut out for him.
Speaker 4: When was the moment you realize you made Did I
Speaker 4: make it?
Speaker 2: Though? I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Today on the show, we'll look at how Wemby could
Speaker 3: become the NBA's first on court billionaire and what makes
Speaker 3: him so unique both on and off the court. I'm
Speaker 3: your host, Sarah Holder, and this is the big take
Speaker 3: from Bloomberg News. Randall Williams is a sports business reporter
Speaker 3: here at Bloomberg and he covers a lot of leagues.
Speaker 4: NFL, NBA, MLB, WNBA, NWSL and so many other leagues
Speaker 4: that are popping up, and it's really fun.
Speaker 3: Randal is a basketball fan, so he jumped at the
Speaker 3: chance to interview Victor Wembanyama. Now, one thing lots of
Speaker 3: people know about when Minyama is how tall he is,
Speaker 3: But Randall says there's a difference between knowing how tall
Speaker 3: he is and feeling it when you're standing next to him.
Speaker 4: People don't realize what seven four or seven to five
Speaker 4: looks like until they're standing next.
Speaker 3: To it, and you've had the rare chance to stand out.
Speaker 4: I'm not six ten, I'm five to ten. So imagine
Speaker 4: someone much much smaller standing next to Victor Wombinyama, and
Speaker 4: like the height thing is one thing. The palm of
Speaker 4: his hand might be longer than my hand itself.
Speaker 3: And Randall did not men's words on how much potential
Speaker 3: he sees in the young Frenchman.
Speaker 4: I think he could potentially be the biggest international superstar ever.
Speaker 3: Can you describe his game a little?
Speaker 4: I would say his game resembles Kevin Durant a little bit.
Speaker 4: That's who he modeled his game after. He even wore
Speaker 4: Kevin Durant shoes growing up. On defense, he's like Rudy.
Speaker 3: Gobert for non fans, those are arguably the most dominant
Speaker 3: offensive and defensive players in the league today at their
Speaker 3: respective positions. If Wemby fulfills that promise, he will be
Speaker 3: very well compensated. Wemby stands to earn a billion dollars
Speaker 3: by age thirty three. Let us know, how does the
Speaker 3: math work?
Speaker 4: So he has a fifty five million dollar contract right now,
Speaker 4: and you know that deal is going to go for
Speaker 4: I believe four years. When he gets to the third
Speaker 4: or fourth year, the Spurs are going to offer him
Speaker 4: whatever that rookie extension is going to be Bloomberg. I
Speaker 4: think our estimates have three hundred and sixteen million. It
Speaker 4: could be more than that, it could be less now,
Speaker 4: but it's going to be a three hundred million dollar deal.
Speaker 4: When that extension runs out, he'll be likely offered another one,
Speaker 4: which will be a supermax.
Speaker 3: So what exactly is a supermax deal?
Speaker 4: How you become eligible for a supermax is if you
Speaker 4: win a postseason award, so an NBA MVP, a Most
Speaker 4: Improved Player, something like that, or you make an All
Speaker 4: NBA team, and there's three of those. I think that
Speaker 4: Wemby is very likely to get one one of them,
Speaker 4: especially as some of these they're not older, but the
Speaker 4: guys who are dominating the NBA right now they age.
Speaker 3: And Wemby is only twenty years old, so he's got
Speaker 3: years of playing ahead of him.
Speaker 4: When you look at that trajectory of his career, the
Speaker 4: level that he's playing for the Spurs, I would estimate
Speaker 4: that he's going to be offered a Supermax. That supermax
Speaker 4: could very well be over five hundred million dollars, which
Speaker 4: will take him to eight hundred or eight nine hundred
Speaker 4: million dollars in earnings. The one after that is pretty
Speaker 4: much the same qualifications. So I think it's very likely
Speaker 4: that he's going to earn a billion dollars in encore earnings,
Speaker 4: and god knows what he's going to earn off.
Speaker 3: Now. Randall points out that all of this earning is
Speaker 3: contingent on nothing happening to Wemby, that he a.
Speaker 4: Doesn't get in trouble and b doesn't have a catastrophic
Speaker 4: injury God forbid.
Speaker 3: And taller players like him do tend to have a
Speaker 3: higher rate of injuries. But part of what sets Wemby
Speaker 3: apart is his unique training regimen that focuses on flexibility.
Speaker 4: Based on what I've spoken to him about and even
Speaker 4: watching him warm up, he is insanely flexible. There was
Speaker 4: a moment a couple of weeks ago where he sprang
Speaker 4: like his ankle did something that it was not supposed
Speaker 4: to do. It was like ninety degrees to the ground
Speaker 4: and he played.
Speaker 3: So a worst case scenario would be an injury. There
Speaker 3: are also best case scenarios in which Wemby stands to
Speaker 3: earn that billion even sooner, like if the NBA raises
Speaker 3: its salary cap and starts paying players more.
Speaker 4: And what's happening right now in the NBA is the
Speaker 4: NBA's media deals is being negotiated. And the last time
Speaker 4: the NBA's media deal was negotiated, the salary cap jumped
Speaker 4: thirty percent, which is huge. It really just set up
Speaker 4: the NBA's players to earn a lot more. Well, this
Speaker 4: new media deal is going to triple the last one,
Speaker 4: meaning the salary cap is likely going to jump again.
Speaker 4: And so anyone who's watched Wemby realizes that this guy
Speaker 4: is really a phenom. If he just stays healthy, he's
Speaker 4: going to be something we've never seen before.
Speaker 3: So that's how much Wemby stands to make on the court.
Speaker 3: To the break, we'll talk about the kind of deals
Speaker 3: that await him off the court. For a young star
Speaker 3: like Wemby, there are no shortage of suitors that want
Speaker 3: him to endorse their products and brands, But so far,
Speaker 3: Wemby has been very selective in what products he chooses
Speaker 3: to get behind. For example, while he reportedly had a
Speaker 3: lucrative offer from Gatorade, Randall says Wemby chose to invest
Speaker 3: in a smaller, newer sports drink brand he felt was
Speaker 3: more aligned with his values. It's called Barcode.
Speaker 4: So Barcode is a plant beaijed drink founded by Mubark
Speaker 4: malik Is. They call him Bar, and Bar flew to
Speaker 4: Paris to meet Wemby and his family. And when he
Speaker 4: gets there, Wemby's mother, who's a nutritionist and a massage therapist,
Speaker 4: I believe she sits down as she's looking at the
Speaker 4: ingredients within the Barcode bottle and she's like, oh wow, like,
Speaker 4: these are some of the things that I gave him
Speaker 4: as a child. And that was a big turning point.
Speaker 3: And Randall's Wemby didn't just do the deal with Barcode
Speaker 3: because of what the brand represents, but also because they
Speaker 3: had a unique offering for him. Instead of just a
Speaker 3: big payday upfront, they gave him an opportunity to invest
Speaker 3: in the brand, and investing in brands is something Wemby
Speaker 3: has watched some other huge names in the game do.
Speaker 3: He told Randall about who he looked up to most.
Speaker 2: Kobe, Lebron Jordan, and yeah, Magic Johnson.
Speaker 3: These aren't just four of the NBA's greatest basketball talents.
Speaker 3: Lebron James, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson all have networths
Speaker 3: north of one billion dollars. The late Kobe Bryant's estate
Speaker 3: is well on its way to eclipsing that number as well,
Speaker 3: and a lot of their money was made through investments
Speaker 3: in sports franchises, fast food chains, and entertainment deals. Randall
Speaker 3: sees Wemby's Barcode investment as a step in that same direction.
Speaker 4: So I think that this resembles Kobe Bryant in Body
Speaker 4: Armorer in some ways. Kobe invested in Body Armor much
Speaker 4: later in his career, but it netted him four hundred
Speaker 4: million dollar, and so Wemby could do the exact same
Speaker 4: thing if Barco continues to grow.
Speaker 3: And as for his next move, Wemby says he's just
Speaker 3: beginning to figure out what his investing game could look like.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm a rookie in the NBA, but I'm
Speaker 2: also a rookie in the game of investment. So far,
Speaker 2: we're pretty calm, but someday we're gonna stip in big.
Speaker 3: And Wemby isn't just thinking about how to amass a
Speaker 3: bunch of money, He's also thinking about how he'll spend
Speaker 3: that money. He sees using his earnings on causes he
Speaker 3: believes in as another way to express his identity. Here's
Speaker 3: Randall again.
Speaker 4: Another big surprise and an interview which was him saying
Speaker 4: that he wants to build wells and just provide clean
Speaker 4: water to third world countries. And one of the things
Speaker 4: that he was looking at was like mister Beast, who's
Speaker 4: a YouTuber who was doing some similar things in the
Speaker 4: continent of Africa. And so I think when he gets
Speaker 4: more money, when he starts earning a lot more, that's
Speaker 4: going to be at the top of his to do list.
Speaker 3: We'll be watching the season and hopefully for years to
Speaker 3: come to see whether Wenby joins the ranks of the
Speaker 3: NBA's all time greats and whether he manages to become
Speaker 3: a billionaire in the process. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 3: Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. This episode
Speaker 3: was produced by Alex Sugiura. It was edited by Caitlin Kenney.
Speaker 3: It was mixed by Blake Maples. It was fact checked
Speaker 3: by Stacy Rene. Our senior producers are Jilda Di Carli
Speaker 3: and Naomi Shaven. We get editorial direction from Elizabeth Ponso.
Speaker 3: Sage Bauman is our executive producer and head of Podcasts.
Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow