One of the most famous NBA players, LeBron James is making millions on and off court. As per The Celebrity Net Worth website, LeBron dropped McDonald's and opted for a newer food chain. The website stated that he turned down McDonald's offer and chose to invest in Blaze instead.
Blaze is a smaller food chain. It may be new but it is a rapid growing food company that serves pizza. What made Blaze unique is that customers can assemble their pizza while via assembly line. The make-your-own pizza place is slowly becoming a hit.
James is keeping his hopes up in earning more out of the new pizza place. Fast casual pizza chains were able to generate around $779 million in almost 800 restaurant towards the end of 2014. Blaze is part of Fast, which has the biggest contribution with its unit growth last year. It ballooned to more than 400%. On top of its unit growth, Blaze also had the largest sales growth at more than 450% . The company earned a huge amount before LeBron James signed the deal to promote them.
As of today, Blaze has a total of 88 branches in several locations. It's planning to increase in number in the upcoming month by opening a new restaurant every 4 months. In doing so, the company would be able to have a total of 200 branches by the end of 2016.
As of Forbes, James is one of the highest paid celebrities. He's the first NBA player that was able to make an appearance in 5 consecutive NBA finals since the 1960s. The MVP player returned to Cleveland in July, 2014. He signed a $42.1 million contract of two years.
Aside from Blaze and NBA earning, James also earned around $30 million when Beats By Dre was sold to apple just last year. He also scored major endorsement deals in huge companies such as Coca-Cola and Samsung.
