Usher is poised to grace the stage at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, adding another notch to his decorated music career. His performance also marks another crossover in the pro sports world.
Usher continues to be a minority owner of the NBA‘s Cleveland Cavaliers. That means he’ll join an exclusive club of Super Bowl halftime show headline performers who are active part-owners of a major pro sports team (Justin Timberlake, who performed at the 2004 and 2018 halftime show, bought a limited stake in the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies in 2012). The R&B crooner has held his limited partner title since 2005, when Rocket Mortgage founder Dan Gilbert purchased the NBA team from Cleveland businessman Gordon Gund for about $375 million.
Gilbert was the lead man in the deal, and remains the team’s principal, but when the deal went through back in 2005, the Cavs didn’t hesitate to highlight the rest of an ownership group headlined by Usher, who was entering global stardom thanks to his widely popular Confessions album.
“The Cavs were ahead of themselves in what they did with Usher,” former Cavaliers chief marketing officer Jim Kahler said in an interview. “Take a look at when that [deal] happened and how many celebrities are now investing in professional sports… I’m not sure if the Cavs ever really leveraged the hell out of it but at the end of the day it was a good investment for Usher.”
It’s unclear how much stake Usher still owns in the Cavs, who declined to comment for this story. But his investment, even if minimal, has jumped in the last two decades. The Cavs were valued at $3.2 billion in Sportico’s latest NBA valuations.
Usher followed in the footsteps of fellow Grammy winner Jay-Z, who owned a stake in the Brooklyn Nets (formerly the New Jersey Nets) from 2003 to 2013. Jay-Z, who brokered Roc Nation’s Super Bowl halftime show partnership with the NFL, also was the one who delivered the news to Usher that he would be this year’s headliner.
Usher, who has made appearances not just at Cavs’ home games but also on the road, has been involved in social media efforts and other brand marketing elements (though he’s been less visible in recent years). It’s difficult to quantify how Usher’s promotion of the franchise has impacted marketing efforts over the years.
“I think more than anything it brought credibility to Dan Gilbert’s ownership group,” Kahler said in an interview. “He gets the big picture.”
Many entertainment fans were confused more than a decade later when Usher stormed the court to celebrate the Cavs’ 2016 title with former stars Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson as the confetti came raining down.
The Cavaliers, who recently added Cleveland Browns star defensive end Myles Garrett as a limited partner, are cruising at the halfway mark of the season. With the strong core of players led by Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, the young group may find itself making another deep playoff run this summer.
Meanwhile, the franchise’s most famous limited partner is cheering from afar as he gets set for one of the biggest moments in his career on Sunday.
(This story has been corrected in the first and second paragraphs to clarify that Justin Timberlake, who performed at the 2004 and 2018 Super Bowl halftime shows, is a minority owner in the Memphis Grizzlies.)