Kyrie Irving’s Anta deal pays a double-digit royalty as extension talks open

DALLAS — Oct. 15, 2026 — Kyrie Irving took a smaller guarantee to leave Nike for Anta, and the bet is paying off. Irving receives a double-digit percentage of sales on his signature line, more than twice the 5 percent royalty that signature athletes often get, according to industry sources cited by The Athletic’s Christian Clark. The Mavericks guard has two years left on the five-year deal he signed in July 2023, and the two sides have already talked about an extension without reaching an agreement.

The timing matters. Irving returned to the court on Sunday in Macao after 586 days away, and Anta is now selling a line whose face is finally back on the floor. Maurice Robertson, Anta’s general manager for North America, said in a statement that sales of Irving’s signature line are up 20 percent year over year and that the company sees “considerable opportunity ahead as Kyrie returns to the court.”

How the deal is built

The structure is the opposite of a classic shoe contract. Irving’s Nike deal, which ran from 2011 until the company cut ties in December 2022, was reported at around $11 million a year in mostly guaranteed money. Anta offered less up front but tied Irving’s earnings to how much product moves. The exact royalty rate and the total sales figure have not been made public, so the dollar value of the deal is still unknown.

The scale of the difference is easy to see with round numbers. On a line that sells $100 million, a 5 percent royalty is worth $5 million; a 10 percent royalty is worth $10 million. Irving’s cut is reported to be at least in that double-digit range, which means every jump in sales lands in his pocket at twice the usual rate.

Irving also holds a title. When the partnership was announced, Anta named him chief creative officer of Anta Basketball, with a mandate to recruit players, designers, artists and musicians to build product under his line. His mother and agent, Shetellia Riley Irving, has said the family first considered launching an independent brand and instead pushed for a contract with real equity and creative control rather than a standard royalty-and-walk-away deal.

What the numbers show so far

Item	Detail
Signed	July 2023, five years
Years remaining	Two
Royalty	Double-digit percentage of signature-line sales (typical rate about 5%)
Guaranteed money	Less than his old Nike deal
Signature-line sales	Up 20% year over year, per Anta
First signature shoe	KAI 1, March 2024
Extension	Discussed, no agreement yet

The KAI 1 arrived in March 2024, and the line has since expanded into more basketball models and lifestyle footwear. Early resale data pointed the same way: a January 2025 Fashion Dive report said the KAI 1 helped lift Anta’s sales on StockX by 1,901 percent from the year before. Footwear industry insiders, Clark reported, generally view the pairing as a success.

Why Anta wants more than one star

Irving is still Anta’s only needle-moving NBA name, and the company has tried to change that. It made a strong push to sign Pistons guard Cade Cunningham in the summer of 2025 before he re-signed with Nike that November, and it also chased Stephen Curry. Both pursuits fell short, but they show how much the brand wants a second face for the American market.

That makes the Irving extension the company’s most important piece of business in basketball. A new deal would lock in the player whose sales growth Anta is pointing to while it keeps hunting for the next signing. For Irving, a 34-year-old coming back from a long layoff, the healthier he looks this season, the stronger his hand at the table becomes, because his earnings rise and fall with what fans actually buy.