Stephen Curry close to signing $1 billion deal with Under Armour

“There wasn’t quite an understanding of what it took to run a business like that properly,” Curry says of Under Armour’s commitment to his shoes at the time. He pauses. “So, yeah, I got mad.” With the partnership already boiling, Plank appeared on CNBC praising the business mindset of then-newly-elected Trump as “a real asset to the country.” Asked about the comment in an interview the next day, Curry shot back, “I agree with that description, if you remove the ‘et.’ ” Curry reached out to Plank privately, and while the Under Armour founder tells me “there was zero beef,” Curry’s frustration lingers. “When you represent a company that big,” he tells me, “you can’t just fly by the seat of your pants.” -via Rolling Stone / September 14, 2022

At a come-to-Jesus summit with Plank in the summer of 2018, Curry says, he made clear that he was thinking about leaving for the competition: “Certain things needed to change, or else.” Nodding toward his crotch, he adds, “I put it on the table.” After the meeting, Plank agreed to establish Curry Brand as its own subsidiary, in the mold of Jordans. “I don’t have to raise my voice to get mad,” Curry says. “That’s the best part about it.” -via Rolling Stone / September 14, 2022

Moreover, there is so much more that the Currys have done in Oakland outside the public and media eye. “Steph calls me last December and tells me to hang out with him during the middle of COVID,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and co-CEO at Workday. “ ‘Come to Oakland and come to an event with me.’ We got to a few food banks and women shelters. We pack up toys. This is his day off between games. “We got to get the world to be fairer. More balanced. You think about Eat. Learn. Play. You think about what they did during the pandemic. They served more than 20 million meals to kids. I don’t know how Oakland would have got through it without Steph and Ayesha. I really don’t.” -via Andscape / September 13, 2022