Kobe being offered $83 Million by Olympiakos

[Kuberski33]

If not Kobe, then they'll go after LeBron next....and not him then someone else.  Eventually they're going to get a high profile star to go because at the end of the day, money always talks.  Wonder how Czar Stern will handle this given that the NBA caps salaries.....

[LB3533]

So it's about 31 million per season....the ball club wants a 3 year commitment....I bet Kobe will do 1 year at 62 million but not 3 years.

[jdub1660]

One would have to think that Nike would have some say in this.

That being said, is it possible that from Nike's stand point, that Kobe going to Europe would be better for them?

Of course...look at Josh Childress. Now that he's overseas, Nike has him as their spokesperson. Not that Nike isn't already big worldwide, it only helps when big name American athletes are wearing them all over the earth. Nike would probably throw even more money at Kobe to make him the richest athlete ever...I think Tiger is # right now and ahead of LeBron

[ederson]

I don`t know how much KB will raise the average attendance and you shouldn`t judge by this since the Greek league has very bad and very small gyms. But it`s 1000000% sure that every game Olympiacos will play will be sold out both in Greek league and euroleague and packed many hours before tip off.

Players of lower caliber where literaly worshiped like Gods. Living in Greece will be an unbelievable experience for any top player. Bballwise of course Euroleague and the Greek championship can`t be compared to the NBA in any level.

I can`t understand why a top NBA player in his prime would move overseas. There is a big salary raise but it`s not like KB earns 1 mil/y and wants to get 2. Top players are already paid big
For a 35year old KB would be a good choice though.


UPDATE
After talking to my olympiacos connections it seems that the rumour is not 100% true. The owners do think about offering a contract to an NBA top star but that`s it. First they want to see how the Childress experiment will work out and then move accordingly. The "83m $ rumour" has started by Italian press and olympiacos` ownership is a little annoyed by this.

[Shots]

One would have to think that Nike would have some say in this.

That being said, is it possible that from Nike's stand point, that Kobe going to Europe would be better for them?

I strongly doubt that.

As far as I know Greece has a population near 10 mio people and 4 of them lives in Athens. As Olympiakos is an Athens based club it's quite a decent market.

But it's no where near the LA/California area or America in general. While basketball might be one of the most popular sports in the US, it shares no way near the same popularity over here. On the top of my head I'm quite sure the only country in Europe which "ranks" bball over football is Lithuania. A country that doesn't really have a decent market or great influence in Europe. And I'm quite sure that most bball fans in Europe are more familiar with NBA than the Euroleague.

I doubt that Olympiakos could afford having Kobe, but even if it's possible, he wouldn't change anything. I'd compare it to Beckhams move from Real Madrid to LA Galaxy. Sure he has promoted the sport quite a bit, but he won't revolutionize anything.

So from my point of view I can't see why this would make sense for Nike.