Shareef O’Neal plans to be his own man and not depend on his father Shaquille O’Neal’s sports fame and money or his mother Shaunie O’Neal’s bank from her “Basketball Wives” television empire.
Shareef, a 6-foot-10 junior at Louisiana State University, is the latest athlete to take advantage of the new NCAA NIL (name, image, likeness) rule that went into effect on July 1 and allows college athletes to profit from their images and reputations. The young LSU Tiger has signed an NIL deal with NFT Genius, a cryptocurrency startup backed by investors such as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and actor Ashton Kutcher.
“I had an NIL meeting last year and I told my mom, ‘Oh, I think I’m going to be able to start making money.’ And she was clapping and she was like, ‘Woo hoo, no more asking me and your dad [for money],’ ” Shareef O’Neal told USA Today.
While details of the deal weren’t announced the younger O’Neal hinted the offer was lucrative. “It could be a crazy amount, that’s all I know.”
NFT Genius launched BALLERZ in November, a collection of 10,000 basketball-themed Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that included Shareef O’Neal. Jeremy Born, CEO of NFT Genius, further revealed that the project and deal also include the entire O’Neal family.
“It’s a monumental undertaking — arguably the first time in the NFT space where an athlete is showcased not only for their work on the court, but also for important causes and personal hardships they may be facing off the court,” Born also told USA Today in a statement.
Shareef’s own collection of NFTs will launch next week on December 13, a significant day for the young baller. On December 13, 2018, he underwent open-heart surgery after he was diagnosed with an abnormal right coronary artery, a birth defect that caused an artery to grow in the wrong place.
