The most important thing LeBron James did by winning a championship is securing his legacy and silencing all of the critics. Now that he has a ring, there is very little all the LeBron haters can say. He can hit the big shot, he can step up in the biggest games of the year and he can put a team on his back and carry them to a title. In addition to all that glorious stuff which I’m sure helps him sleep at night, LeBron is also going to make a ton more money than he did when he was ringless.
As Forbes.com pointed out, LeBron already makes about $40 million annually in endorsement money. Now that he can be marketed as a champion and will be in higher demand for talk shows and new advertisements, King James can expect to add about $10 million to that number.
“Expect to see a lot of LeBron in the next month or two, in ads, on talk shows and in London,” Bob Dorfman of Baker Street Advertising in San Francisco said.
Who knows, maybe he’ll even start his own line of thick fake eyeglasses and make some money off of that. Apparently that is what the champions wear these days. Another marketing expert, Robert Tuchman, agrees that claiming the Larry O’Brien trophy will result in LeBron becoming even more of a marketing machine.
“An NBA championship will finally brand Lebron a winner, probably the most coveted character trait a company looks for in a product endorser,” Tuchman said according to AdAge.com. “It’s going to lift him into the endorsement stratosphere where only Peyton Manning lives. (He’ll make at) minimum 30% to 40% more.”
Don’t ever listen to anyone who tells you winning isn’t everything.
H/T I Am a GM
Photo credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE
