Stephen Curry is one of the most successful and marketable athletes in the United States of America and a brand like Nike is more than aware of that.

Reaching the height of sport in the way that Curry has in the NBA brings with it incredibly lucrative sponsorship deals, hence why the best athletes in the world are classified as ‘a Nike athlete’ or ‘an Adidas athlete’ and so on.

Having exclusive control over the gear that a major athlete wears is very important for these brands, but Nike managed to once lose 14 billion dollars with a very costly mistake.

The likes of LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin Durant and Tiger Woods are all Nike athletes, but Curry chose not to join that elite group and go in another direction, all thanks to some stupidity from Nike.

He used to wear Nike

Curry was drafted 7th overall in the NBA and worn Nike shoes throughout his college career, so it seemed like a formality that he would sign a deal. They did sign him, but only on a four-year deal that ran until 2013, which is the year that Curry really rocketed into stardom.

Curry scored a career-high 54 points at Madison Square Garden in 2013. He also set the single-season record for three-pointers that year, all whilst wearing Nikes.

Nike were slow to renew his contract and Curry was able to hear offers from other brands, with Nike having the right to match those offers. Curry met Nike with his dad and it became clear that he was not considered one of Nike’s biggest athletes even though he had been with them for four years and was now a star.

The presentation was poorly given and they even pronounced his first name wrong with nobody correcting the person who did it. Nike had given younger, unproven players like Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving youth development camps instead of Curry.

He joined Under Armour instead. The brand shot up from $47 a share to a whopping $120! Curry single-handedly doubled the brand’s worth from $14 billion to $28 billion in a few years.