Chapter 446 - 1998 NBA Draft 4 (1/2)

Usually, endors.e.m.e.nt contracts were made at Adidas with a presentation by the company on the marketing proposals they had for the player they would sign, but David had already seen it all and it was Jake who had asked to sign the contract. In Los Angeles.

Jake would rather have signed with Nike because he knew the future, but he actually liked Adidas very much and wanted to do his best to help the company over the next 5 years that the contract between them would last.

In the meantime he would leave everything to Adidas and David Falk to take care of a tennis brand using his name and also the advertis.e.m.e.nts, Jake trusted David for this and knew that David was happy because he would receive 10 percent of those 52 million dollars. contract dollars.

”My name is Mike Morris, it is a pleasure to meet you, Jake Smith, I will be the representative of Adidas company to talk to you for years to come and if you have any questions you can call me and I will do everything I can to help.”

”We at Adidas expect a lot from you in basketball and also in marathons, so if you need any help in the next marathons we can help and if you think about an advertising campaign we will also listen to you.”

”Thanks, Mike, I also hope that we will work together for many years, I already left my coach taking care of the next competitions in the marathon for me, but he will let you know when I am going to compete and so you can prepare.”

”Okay, how are you going to play here in Los Angeles so you will probably find a place to live here in the city when you do that we will send you some of our company's products for you to use whenever you want.”

”Okay, I'll let you know.”

After that the contract that had already been made by David and the Adidas company was handed over to Jake who signed it after reading it carefully, he was happy that David had already negotiated the contract with the sponsoring companies so that they could do things faster.

In the next few days, the other companies came so that Jake could sign the endors.e.m.e.nt contract, in the end, no new company decided to sign with him after David increased the contract to $ 2 million a year.

So Jake signed with 4 other companies a 4 million dollar contract for 4 years, the companies were Gatorade, Gillette, Pepsi, and Chevrolet, so Jake managed an additional 16 million dollars in 4 years with these companies and would receive 4 corn of dollars a year.

David Falk was satisfied with these contracts that Jake had signed and knew that Jake did not intend to sign any new contracts that did not pay more than he had asked for before the NBA draft.

Jake knew well that the way to be successful in the NBA was not always to negotiate millionaire contracts with the teams but to negotiate millionaire contracts with the endors.e.m.e.nt companies, Jake got Pepsi, Gatorade, and Gillette because of the old contracts sponsorship and because of David's help.

Jake was sure that in the coming years these companies would be happy if he really won 3 NBA titles and he would get new contracts and renew those contracts with much higher values.

Even after signing the contracts, Jake did not leave Los Angeles because there was still one day left before the NBA lockout that would be on July 1, Jake had to wait for the teams to release the players and so Jake would go to Australia.

With all the sponsorship contracts and the Los Angeles Lakers team signed, Jake didn't care about the NBA lockout, even though this season he knew the players would be paid less than he did.

Just as Jake expected in the next few days the NBA lockout actually happened and the Los Angeles Lakers team had to release the players, the same day Jake managed to schedule a flight to Australia and after saying goodbye to David he went to Sydney.

Jake was no longer suffering from the long 1-day trip on the plane and after resting for just one day he was much better and ready to re-shoot the scenes he missed in those weeks.

While Jake was away the actors did more fight scenes than Jake's character would not participate, Jake really wanted to see the footage of those scenes in person, but he couldn't ask the directors for it and had to settle for seeing the footage later.

Some more complicated scenes took days to shoot and some stuntmen were actually injured during the shoot, Jake suffered no injuries because he had a better physique than many stuntman's and also had faster reflexes.