Adidas is tapping fashion designer Jerry Lorenzo and his Fear of God brand to help elevate its basketball business. 

Lorenzo will lead creative and business strategy for Adidas basketball globally, and launch a Fear of God athletics sub-brand. NBA players James Harden, Damian Lillard, Derrick Rose and Donovan Mitchell all have signature sneakers with the company.

Lorenzo was previously affiliated with Nike, releasing a pair of Air Fear Of God 1 sneakers on Instagram last month.

Adidas rivals have made notable moves in basketball recently:

• Puma brought on Jay-Z as creative director of its basketball division in 2018.
• Nike’s Jordan Brand signed five WNBA players, including 2020 Rookie of the Year Crystal Dangerfield.
• Under Armour launched a sub-brand with Steph Curry.

It’s unclear if basketball presents a true growth opportunity for Adidas.

Sales of performance basketball sneakers were down 20% in the first half of 2020 and now represent less than 5% of all athletic shoes sold, according to NPD Group.

North America net sales for Adidas brand were down 6% year-over-year to $1.27 billion in its 2020 fiscal third quarter.

In comparison, Nike saw a 1% year-over-year gain in North American revenues to $4 billion in its most recent quarter.

The NBA is looking at the possibility of expanding beyond 30 teams as the league grapples with the financial fallout of the pandemic.

“It’s sort of the manifest destiny of the league that you expand at some point,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Monday. “I’d say [the pandemic] caused us to maybe dust off some of the analyses on the economic and competitive impacts of expansion.”

Another NBA franchise would almost certainly have an entry fee exceeding $1 billion, which would be distributed evenly across current teams. That could provide some relief after the league missed 2020 revenue projections by $1.5 billion.

The average value of an NBA team is $2.2 billion, up almost sixfold over the last decade. The New York Knicks have the highest valuation at $4.6 billion, while the Memphis Grizzlies have the lowest at $1.3 billion. 

The NBA hasn’t expanded since the Charlotte Hornets paid $300 million to join the league as the Bobcats in 2004. The team is now worth $1.5 billion.

Where To Go? Seattle is a top contender in the NBA’s expansion plans after losing the SuperSonics to Oklahoma City in 2008. 

The Seattle Kraken, who paid $650 million to join the NHL in 2021, will play in the new $930-million Climate Pledge Arena — designed to also accommodate a basketball team. 

The official cost of the postponed Tokyo Olympics is now $15.4 billion, a 22% increase from last year’s budget of $12.6 billion. 

The $2.8 billion difference stems from costs of the one-year delay like renegotiating contracts and implementing COVID-19 safety measures. Costs specifically related to combating the virus total $900 million.

Audits by the Japanese government, however, have suggested that the actual cost of the games will be closer to $30 billion.

• When Tokyo won the bid for the event in 2013, it said it would cost $7.5 billion.
• The Japanese government and taxpayers are responsible for all but $6.7 billion of the cost, an increasingly hard sell to the public as anti-Olympics sentiment grows. 

About 70 domestic sponsors have already contributed a record $3.3 billion, and other companies will reportedly tack on $150 million more. 

In October, Tokyo organizers announced that they would shave $280 million off the budget by cutting back on some frills like hospitality offerings.