adidas Aligns With McGrady In Lifetime Partnership

Magic G Tracy McGrady has signed a lifetime partnership with adidas. McGrady is currently in the final year of a six-year deal with adidas. Earlier this year, adidas introduced the T-Mac, its first signature McGrady basketball shoe, which gave the company its first number one selling shoe in the U.S. in almost six years (adidas). ESPN.com's Darren Rovell — noting McGrady's current deal with adidas is worth $12M — cited sources as saying that McGrady will "now receive royalties on every pair of shoes sold and all pieces of adidas-branded product under the T-Mac banner in the future." McGrady's deal is "not the first lifetime deal ever structured" for an NBA player, as 76ers G Allen Iverson has a lifetime contract with Reebok. adidas Dir of Basketball Sonny Vaccaro: "If you believe in the kid, why would you go through the trouble of having to renegotiate every six years? It's like free agency, when there are renegotiations, there's always a chance your guy can leave. Now Tracy is tied to us both monetarily and spiritually forever" (ESPN.com, 4/30).