Power Moves: Maverick Carter Lectures At Harvard Business School

 

LeBron James is considered by many to be the ultimate teammate. That philosophy also extends to off the court, where he has been supportive of friends and family undertaking new adventures.

Four years ago, the Harvard School of Business approached LeBron and his business partner Maverick Carter, about creating a case study based on Lebron’s second career as endorser. As far as brands go, athlete’s evolve quite a bit of a short period of time as opposed to huge corporate entities like Nike or Coke. Earlier this week, Maverick had the opportunity to speak before a marketing class about one of LeBron’s most recent projects, “Uninterrupted” with Bleacher Report.

If you aren’t familiar with Maverick’s backstory, he and LeBron were high school friends and teammates. Maverick interned at Nike in 2002, the year before LeBron was drafted, while attending Western Michigan University. In 2003 he was hired by the athletic brand as a basketball sports marketing field representative, in part so that there was a built in connection with LeBron and Nike.

He and LeBron launched LRMR in 2006. Maverick was instrumental in creating several high profile partnerships including; an exclusive deal with Fenway Sports Management (FSM), the global sports marketing and sales arm of Fenway Sports Group, one of the largest and most successful media and entertainment companies in the world. Carter also initiated the minority ownership of the Liverpool Football Club.

In 2011, Carter helped co-found PureBrands LLC, a company that created and marketed lifestyle and wellness products like SheetsTM energy strips. He also spearheaded the Beats by Dre connection into the sports world by spearheading the company’s sports marketing initiatives. In addition, Carter co-founded StyleCaster, a company that creates and distributes women’s lifestyle content.

Also in 2011, Carter and James launched Spring Hill Productions, which produced the The LeBrons, an animated family web series loosely based on LeBron’s life. He also co-produced More Than a Game, a documentary about James and his high school basketball team in Akron, Ohio, and most recently LeBron’s hit Starz show, “Survivor’s Remorse.”

I wrote about LeBron putting his friends in a position to succeed and how other athletes can incorporate some of that into their professional situations in my book, PostGame Pass: access into “the life” available now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.