In 2006, the NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury did something the sneaker industry insisted could not be done. He put a basketball shoe built to perform on store shelves for $14.98, at a time when signature sneakers routinely sold for well over a hundred dollars. He had grown up without much in Coney Island, and he knew the specific sting of wanting to play in shoes a family could not justify buying. So he priced the Starbury One, in his own words, for "access for all" who could not otherwise afford it - then wore the shoes on an NBA court himself to prove the price had nothing to do with whether you could ball.
The number stuck. Not as a discount, but as a principle. $14.98 came to stand for one idea: excellence was never supposed to be gated by price, and the right to move, to play, and to feel good in your own body belongs to everyone.
Our Story: Why 14.98?
Access is not a feature of the mission. Access is the mission.
No one priced out.
The14.98 Foundation takes its name from that number, and its mission from that conviction. We exist because wellness — like the game — has quietly become something people are expected to pay a premium for. Coaching, equipment, safe space, programming, and the simple time to take care of yourself all carry a cost that leaves too many people on the sideline.
“$14.98 was never really about the shoe. It was about who gets to play.”
Everybody plays.
Everybody plays.
