Nike and Kobe Bryant: What are the new shoes that will be launched on August 24 like?

It's official: the Kobe is back. For almost two decades, the marriage of Kobe Bryant and Nike was one of the most successful in the history of sport.

Within the American brand, only Cristiano Ronaldo can rival it in terms of shoe sales since the turn of the century, and only the Jordan line has had a greater economic and cultural impact on basketball.

At the time of his death, Forbes put his accumulated fortune at just over 600 million dollars, making him the third highest earner of any American athlete in his career, just behind Tiger Woods (800 million dollars) and Michael Jordan (1.9 billion dollars).

Although with his last two renewals with the Los Angeles Lakers (2011 and 2014) Bryant became the highest paid player in the NBA at the time, the majority of his earnings during the final stretch of his career came from his off-court activity.

In fact, only 323 million of the aforementioned 600 million is drawn solely from his salary, and his Nike deal was a large part of that surplus.

Kobe fever

While he was active, approximately 20% of NBA players wore one of the Lakers star's models, a percentage that surpassed 33% during the Orlando bubble (months after Bryant's tragic death) and soared beyond 60% during the 21-22 season.

This spike coincided with rumours preceding the possible end of relations between Nike and the Kobe Bryant brand.

On April 20, 2021 it became official: Vanessa Bryant, the former player's widow, announced that they were parting ways, signifying the end of Nike Kobe trainer production and marketing.

The disagreement between Vanessa and Nike had several points of explanation, the first being her dissatisfaction with the way the line had been managed since her husband's death.

The tragic death of Bryant and his daughter Gianna on January 26, 2020 prompted mass purchases of pairs of shoes and accessories, which left Nike's global stock shivering.

For a time, the company was unable to meet the huge demand it was receiving, creating an ongoing availability problem that frustrated Vanessa and those in charge of managing the Kobe brand outside of Nike.

What did separate the paths of Bryant and the American brand was the initial reluctance to offer a lifetime contract like the one LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo have with Nike.

A stumbling block that they managed to overcome a little less than a year after breaking off their relationship, announcing in March 2022 that they were getting closer again.

In fact, at the end of 2020, with rumours of a contract termination already in vogue, there were rumours of Kobe's plan to leave Nike to focus on building his independent brand: Mamba. A new Kobe trainer

"I met with Kobe at the end of 2019. He wasn't happy with Nike and was planning to leave in 2020," Shervin Pishevar, an entrepreneur close to Bryant, said on Twitter after his retirement.

"He was thinking of starting 'Mamba', a player-owned trainer company."

However, since their reunion, no new release of the line has seen the light of day except for the very limited pair designed to honour Gigi's memory, the 'Mambacitas'.

A special edition whose profits would go to the 'Mamba & Mambacita Sports Foundation' founded after the deaths of father and daughter.

Until now. This week Nike has revealed an open secret through its social media and its trainer sales portal.

Next August 24, the day marked by the addition of the '24' (day) and the '8' (month) that Kobe wore as numbers during his NBA career, will restart the launches of the line.

From then until the end of the year, three pairs will be released: Nike Kobe 8 Protro 'Triple White' on August 24, Kobe 6 Protro 'Reverse Grinch' ('released' by Anthony Davis last season) on December 16 and the Kobe 4 Protro 'Black & Gold' on December 26.

These will be followed by new pairs and re-releases throughout 2024. One of the most prolific silhouettes in trainer history is back, and Nike promises to bring it back to the top.