In addition to dominating the basketball court, Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James is proving to be a skillful businessman when he isn't competing for world championships.
James' investment in a small southern California pizza chain has paid off. In 2012, invested in Blaze Pizza with the hope of growing the chain and turning it into a nationally recognized brand. By 2015, he had three years under his belt as an investor. James reportedly turned a very lucrative deal estimated at $14 million with McDonald's to appear in Blaze Pizza marketing campaigns.
"I believed in the actual product, first," James said in an April interview on Uninterrupted's Kneading Dough. "I remember going to UC Irvine, the first-ever Blaze, and we tasted the product and the product was phenomenal … And you came to me with the proposition that we actually own our own and be franchisees of a couple cities in America. And the numbers that you were showing me, the numbers that we could make if we just put the time in effort into it, would be exceeding what McDonald's would be giving me guaranteed over the next four years.
According to Forbes, Blaze Pizza started with two restaurants and has opened its 200th restaurant Tuesday in Mentor, Ohio. The pizza chain is the fastest start in the history of the U.S. food service business per an industry consultancy Technomic report.
The chain has plans to go international in the next five years. And in that time the company will have a with a billion-dollar valuation, reported Business Insider.
This only means bucket loads of cool cash for King James.
