According to Clark, the money comes from licensing agreements involving products such as NBA 2K, jerseys and trading cards. Instead of paying dramatically larger shares to superstars such as LeBron James, Clark explained that the players collectively agreed to divide the licensing revenue equally.
“The licensing check this year was $385,000,” Clark revealed while discussing his NBA earnings.
“Instead of LeBron James making $30 million, all the players came together and said, ‘We’re going to include everybody,’” he continued. “Everybody gets an equal share, no matter if you’re the top dog on the team or the bottom dog.”
The arrangement Clark described is known as group licensing, which allows companies to use participating players’ names, images and likenesses across officially licensed products. The NBA and NBPA maintain licensing partnerships covering major properties such as the NBA 2K franchise and officially licensed trading cards. NBA Communications and the NBPA have separately confirmed those partnerships.
Clark’s disclosure quickly caught attention because it showed how valuable those collective agreements can be—even for players who may not have the star power or individual endorsement deals of the league’s biggest names.
While NBA salaries receive most of the attention, Clark’s $385,000 revelation offered fans a rare glimpse at another major source of income available to players.
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