It’s pretty obvious the connection between Bubba Wallace and the NBA. The 23XI Racing driver has as his boss, one of the greatest athletes of all time, and certainly the greatest NBA player ever, Michael Jordan.

However, before Jordan, Wallace was tied to another NBA great, a fella that goes by the name of LeBron James.

Back in 2015, during the initial years of his career, Wallace was struggling with finding a sponsor. That’s when Roush Fenway Racing tried coming to his rescue and devised a strategy to associate him with the former Cleveland Cavaliers player.

“We think there’s a lot of creative opportunities to do some really crossover promotions with Bubba,” Steve Newmark, the Team President said. “LeBron is under the Fenway umbrella on the sports marketing side; LeBron and Johnny Manziel.”

Speaking about his sponsorship struggles, Wallace admitted that he had been struggling with finding a sponsor for over a decade.

“I’ve been battling sponsorship for 12 years,” Wallace said. “It’s just been family-oriented stuff for the first six so I’m used to it. That was a lot of practice for me.”

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Bubba Wallace on his troubles with sponsorships early in his career

Though Bubba Wallace has now a list of esteemed brands and companies as his sponsors, it wasn’t long ago when he was still struggling to land and keep a sponsor. And it’s not like he wasn’t winning races.

He was. It just wasn’t working.

Speaking about this in an interview, Wallace recalled how he was “always trying to be different”, unlike the average stereotypical NASCAR driver.

“I was just always out there, balls to the walls, having fun. I thought that would attract sponsors, and we were producing results,” he said. “They always said, you know, You win one, the sponsors will come.’ Well, I won about five or six and the sponsors never came.”

It was frustrating to go through those times.