Jaylen Brown Explains Why He Believes NBA Players Should Have Equity In The Teams They Represent

Jul 14, 2026 - 18:00

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Jaylen Brown believes players should have a stake in the league.

The NBA player, who was recently traded by the Boston Celtics to the Philadelphia 76ers, believes players should be able to invest alongside ownership groups and have access to business opportunities. He also believes players deserve to be rewarded for the time and work they put into their teams.

“I don’t understand why it has ever been a thing, but it’s like you’re an athlete and they make it seem like they can control how much wealth or growth you could actually accumulate. I think that’s wrong,” Brown told Bloomberg. “I also think that just like any other major corporation, like if you work for Apple or if you work for Nike or if you work for anywhere, like if you’re a CEO, if you’re someone who has been on a board for a large amount of time, you get equity in a company at some point, like you are part of it.”

He continued, “And I think athletes should be looked at in the same way. Like you played for the Celtics for 20 years. You should get a piece of equity because you helped accumulate the growth. And that’s the part that gets lost in translation, is the growth from an organization, a growth from a company or a corporation, the sweat equity that you put in. You get compensated just for doing your job, but you don’t get compensated for the growth, and the major corporations and companies do, or at least some of the big ones.”

Brown said he has already proposed this equity structure to the league, though only time will tell whether the idea gains traction. At the time of the conversation with Bloomberg, which was published in January, Brown said the NBA has struck down the idea at every turn.

He believes change will require players to come together in agreement that equity and ownership opportunities are a priority for their participation in the league, he told the outlet.

“Everybody wants to take as much of the piece of the pot as they possibly can. And that’s just how business in America and capitalism has worked… Until we can kind of like get on the same page and formulate what we want when we want it and how we want it to look, nothing will change,” he said in the interview.

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