Soccer holds a special place in Carmelo Anthony’s heart for a reason other than his love of the game: the sport helped him forge a bond with A.C. Milan’s most famous fan, the great Kobe Bryant.
“Our relationship became stronger once he knew I was a futbol fan,” Anthony, an Arsenal supporter, tells Complex. “I wore number seven [with the New York Knicks], so Kobe would say that I was Cristiano Ronaldo and he was [Lionel] Messi. We’d have these battles on the court and would then sit down and talk soccer. Those conversations allowed us to be free and get away from the game of basketball.”
Bryant held him in high esteem since Anthony was a member of the Denver Nuggets. “[Kobe] knew about the work that I put in behind the scenes and respected that,” Anthony says. “Then it carried over onto the court. He witnessed my development and growth and it’s something he actually respected.”
They had their clashes, including a meeting in the 2009 Western Conference Finals, which Bryant’s Lakers won in six tough games. But Bryant reevaluated him after learning of Anthony’s soccer fandom. “He realized that I had a global mindset,” Anthony says, “because I was thinking differently and was probably two steps ahead of what other athletes were thinking at that point in time. He respected that I was brave enough to allow people to know that I was a soccer fan and watched soccer when soccer wasn’t really supposed to be cool here in the U.S.”
Anthony developed a lifelong passion for the game during his freshman year at Syracuse University, one of the greatest one-and-done seasons in men’s college basketball history. His time on campus happened to coincide with Thierry Henry’s record-setting 2002-03 campaign with Arsenal; the French striker scored 24 goals and 20 assists in league play. Henry won the Professional Footballers’ Association Men’s Player of the Year in 2003 and Anthony became a fan of both Henry and the Gunners.
Anthony continues to support the game. With the United States, Mexico, and Canada hosting the 2026 World Cup this summer, the two-time Basketball Hall of Fame inductee has partnered with On Location, the official hospitality provider for the World Cup, and will serve as one of its 16 captains and the face of On Location in New York and New Jersey.
“I’ve always been a fan of the sport, so it’s an honor,” Anthony tells Complex. “There’s no other city in the world that does sports like New York.”
Anthony’s partnership with On Location is his latest business venture. A prolific entrepreneur, Anthony has an interest in an investment company, is the co-founder of a production company, co-owns a wine brand, and is the co-host of the 7 PM in Brooklyn podcast. He’s come a long way since his early days in the NBA when the bulk of his investment portfolio consisted of vintage automobiles.
A feature article in the December 2005 issue of Esquire captured Anthony’s struggles with “becoming more brand than man.” The piece revealed that Anthony refused to cut off his braids for a role in a Penny Marshall movie and that he had mugshot artwork of Al Capone and John Gotti hanging on the wall of his home office.
When asked why he had considered Capone and Gotti his “business idols,” Anthony tells Complex, “I love to read. I love to study. I love to observe. I love to take challenges as far as digging into people's lives and really understanding the mindset of a lot of people. So I was on it back in 2005. Despite what they've done and all the BS that they've been through and created and the corruption and all of the above, the mindset to be able to structure those organizations was something that enticed me, the business mind behind it. It wasn't what they was doing. And as far as the bad stuff, it was how you were able to sit down and orchestrate and build a team and build an organization and be so strong and be so sturdy and have these people lead your organization. I was more interested in that part of it. And I was young too. I grew up on those movies and people. So I just felt like people wouldn't have understood it. I'm glad you asked that because this is the first time that I ever had to elaborate on that.”
Around this time, Michael Jordan, who signed Anthony to the Jordan Brand in 2003, took a greater interest in mentoring him. As written in Esquire, “Jordan himself has summoned Anthony to his Chicago home for private tutoring, wearing down his hardest edges, working at making him as two-dimensional as a billboard.”
“That moment was more about me elevating and taking that next step as a young man on and off the court,” Anthony tells Complex about his meeting with Jordan. “[He was] teaching me the mental aspect of the game and showing me how to approach the game and how to approach my day-to-day. It was more of that. At that point in time, he was ready to give me that and I was ready to receive it. Him being him, he understood, okay, this is the next jump that I need to take. I was fortunate to represent his brand and I'm still fortunate to represent his brand and be a partner over at Jordan Brand.”