Just a couple of days ago, it was announced that Draymond Green would partner with Blink Fitness to open 20 “value-based” fitness centers throughout the U.S. When you're doing something like that, it's vital to generate buzz. That's Business 101 right there. And that's exactly what Green did when he sat down with GQ for an interview that was published early Tuesday afternoon.
Three questions into the interview, Green gave credit to LeBron James for changing how athletes view endorsements. This new(est) praise for James from Green comes less than six months after the Warriors star also gave credit to LeBron for altering free agency. From the article:
It seems like athletes are getting more and more ambitious with their business ventures.
You have to give a lot of credit to LeBron. LeBron did a great job managing his business with his partners. I either read it or I saw him speaking about it … he started to view himself as a partner, not someone who just had an endorsement deal. And I think a lot of athletes have started to take that back. Guys are much more educated, much smarter in the business field and most importantly, guys understand the leverage that we have and the platform that we have as athletes and are trying to take advantage of that.
LeBron has cast a wide net with his dough, as he's invested it in a pizza chain, a production company, a separate media company, etc. Anyway, Green also spoke about how the competitiveness of the pro athlete translates to investments, stating:
"Guys get a little competitive, not necessarily competitive in the sense of like, boasting and bragging, or trying to outdo each other, but there is a little sense of competitiveness and letting guys know what deals you're in, and letting guys know how those deals are performing.
He also talked about his overall ambition, which shows he's taking the LeBron blueprint to heart:
"My goal is to create an entire business around this. I don't think that there's one specific thing that I want to do, like "I wanna be the CEO of this company.” I don't know if that's a specific thing that I want to more so than being involved in a bunch of different businesses so that my portfolio will continue to grow. As of right now, I'm just ready to try and build a business around my investments and being involved in different companies."
Not that you don't know this, but you can go read the whole interview over at GQ.
