Back in October 2023, Angel Reese, with one national championship and zero WNBA games to her name, signed the first major NIL deal in Reebok’s history. A move so unconventional at the time that even the company’s own CEO called it “a big statement about how we’re looking at the landscape.” Nearly three years later, the executive, Shaquille O’Neal, who pushed that signing through, is being credited with reshaping how an entire league gets paid.

Speaking on the Boardroom show alongside Rich Kleiman, Authentic Brands Group chairman Jamie Salter detailed how Shaquille O’Neal pitched him on betting Reebok’s basketball comeback on the WNBA rather than the men’s game.

“He came back and said, ‘I got an idea… I want to focus on women, we’re going to go into women’s basketball, WNBA.’ And I’m telling you, Jamie, there’s going to be a surge,” Salter said on the Boardroom show. “You just got to trust me on this. This is three years ago — people weren’t really talking about it.”

Salter said O’Neal’s pitch centered on a single player. “He says, ‘We’re going to sign this player, her name’s Angel Reese.’ And I’m telling you, this is going to be very, very important to Reebok’s future and to the game of basketball.’”

Shaquille O’Neal, now Reebok Basketball’s president, didn’t just want to sign Reese. He pushed to overpay her relative to her own asking price.

The bet wasn’t cheap or easy to execute. O’Neal admitted that his original plan was to sign a men’s star like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander before running into Reebok’s actual budget constraints, forcing a pivot toward women’s basketball instead.

Angel Reese signed with Reebok in October 2023, months before ever playing a WNBA game. She got a multi-year extension in October 2024 that made her the sixth active WNBA player with a signature shoe.

That extension arrived in the middle of a boom. The WNBA saw a 155% increase in average viewership that same season, alongside rising attendance and app usage, while the league simultaneously expanded with the Golden State Valkyries joining in 2025 and the Toronto Tempo and a Portland franchise following in 2026.

That growth in visibility and commercial interest preceded the WNBA’s 2026 collective bargaining agreement. It delivered major increases to player salaries, benefits and revenue share compared to the league’s previous deal.

“I really do think Shaq changed the WNBA, because the money that was being paid to the WNBA players was kind of not fair,” Salter said. “Women in sport today, three years ago, they’re making substantially a lot more money. And I think Shaq has a lot to do with that.”

Beyond the league-wide numbers, O’Neal’s gamble on Reese paid off. Her signature shoe reportedly sold out following its release, and O’Neal has pointed to her as proof of Reebok’s broader strategy of investing early in women’s basketball rather than treating it as an afterthought to the men’s game. “We do a wonderful job of content. We’re very careful of the players we select. One of our first selections was Angel Reese… her shoe has just been sold out,”