LeBron James: King of the court

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It's 2003.

Picture a boardroom.

Not exactly the most thrilling place, but something big is about to happen.

At the head of a long, imposing table sits a young man.

He's tall.

He's really tall.

And he's reeling a little.

He's just been made an an astonishing offer.

Esquire magazine reports it's $100 million over 10 years for signing with sports brand Reebok.

Looking to seal the deal, Reebok's CEO slides him a little piece of paper.

It's a check for $10 million, and he could cash it that same day.

But there's a catch.

That $10 million is only his if he signs with Reebok right away and refuses to talk to any other company that might be interested in him.

The teenager stares at the figure, $10 million, that's more money than he's ever seen in his entire life.

He's still living with his mum in the projects.

That kind of money, it could change everything, buy their apartment, heck, even maybe buy the whole building.

But this ballsy high school kid, all of 18 years old, decides to turn it down.

Why?

Because if one brand is willing to throw down that kind of cash from the get-go, maybe, just maybe, someone else is willing to give even more money and he wants to hear what they all have to say.

That That teenager, LeBron James.

And at this moment, he hasn't even played a single second of professional basketball.

Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.

Each episode, we pick a billionaire and find out how they made their money and then we judge them.

Are they good, bad, or just another billionaire?

My name is Zing Sing and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.

And my name is Simon Jack and I'm the BBC's business editor.

And if you are a sports fan, you will almost definitely know the name LeBron James.

Yes, in fact, some people call it the Court of King James.

Somebody who's taken on the mantle from one of our other billionaires as one of the greatest superstars in basketball history.

That's right, LeBron is very much seen as the heir to Michael Jordan himself.

And he isn't just a basketball legend, he is actually the first active National Basketball Association, that's NBA, player to become a billionaire.

So he did it before Michael Jordan.

Right now, he's worth about about $1.2 billion.

He still dominates the game at 40 years old.

That is quite an advanced age for any athlete.

Amazing.

He is the star of the Los Angeles Lakers.

And at six foot nine, that's right.

He is almost seven foot tall.

He literally towers over most of us.

And his career, well, it is nothing short of legendary.

Four NBA championships, four MVP titles.

That's most valuable player.

Three Olympic gold medals with Team USA.

And also, let's not forget, he scored more points than anyone else in NBA history.

And yet, while he's still one of the NBA's highest paid players, most of his fortune doesn't actually come from playing basketball.

In fact, a massive 900 million of it comes from business deals.

So, LeBron's story begins in Akron, Ohio, the former rubber capital of the world, no less, which is quite funny when you think about what basketballs are made of.

So, LeBron James is born on December 30th, 1984, to Gloria James, a 16-year-old single mother doing her best to get by.

Now, LeBron never knew his biological dad.

At first, him and his mum lived in his grandmother's big house.

It was a place that felt safe, it felt stable.

But sadly, that didn't last long.

When LeBron was just three, his grandmother died suddenly of a heart attack, and then everything changed.

They lost the house.

Gloria and LeBron were forced to move 12 times in just three years.

That is a lot.

And with no training and little education, Gloria took whatever work she could find it was a tough time living hand to mouth LeBron later recorded I saw drugs guns killings it was crazy but through it all he says he never doubted his mother's love she put me first he said I went without a lot of things but never for one second did I feel unimportant or unloved so humble beginnings for sure for a while Gloria's boyfriend Eddie Jackson stepped in as a sort of father figure but his presence was pretty complicated when LeBron was just two Jackson entered his life by by 1991.

Eddie was serving three years in prison for aggravated cocaine trafficking.

When he got out, he worked as a concert promoter and a drug counselor, but his troubles weren't over.

He went in and out of prison for mortgage and mail fraud and eventually became estranged from LeBron.

So when LeBron was nine, around the time Eddie was in prison, things got even worse.

His mum, Gloria, had to make a heartbreaking decision.

So she asked Frankie, big Frankie Walker, LeBron's football coach, if her son could actually live with his family for a while, she wanted LeBron to have what she'd once had.

What an incredible decision.

I know.

Yeah.

To give up your own son.

It's a hell of a personal sacrifice, but also, you know, it just shows that she didn't think that she could provide what LeBron needed.

Yeah, and that was clearly some element of stability because big Frankie said yes to Gloria.

So he spent a year with the Walkers.

It was life-changing.

So for the first time, he had this routine, you know, same school, same bed, same football team.

Every weekend, he got to see Gloria, so it wasn't like his mum was completely out of the picture.

Yeah, exactly.

And it was Big Frankie who saw something special in young LeBron.

He figured his raw talent could go beyond football, American football, so he introduced him to basketball.

Good move.

That's when things really took off.

LeBron joined a team called the Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars, and he absolutely loved it.

He played alongside three other big rising talents.

The four of them were so good, they became known as the Fab Four.

I really hope LeBron at least invites Big Frankie to Christmas once in a while to thank him.

With a nice present under the tree, for sure.

Exactly.

But, you know, the shooting stars weren't some kind of well-funded elite team, so they had no sponsorship.

The players had to bag groceries at the local supermarket just to afford trips to the championship in the minivan.

And then came a very big decision.

They got an opportunity to play at St.

Vincent St.

Mary's High School, which is a mostly white private school under this incredible coach called Keith Danbrux.

It was a world away from the historically black local high school most people expected them to attend, but they did it.

They took that leap.

But this was a bit of a culture shock for LeBron.

So he later admitted at first, I was so institutionalized from growing up in the hood, I wanted nothing to do with white people.

But over time, you know, the friendship groups were blending, and the Fighting Irish, the school's team, which were led by the Fab Four, went on to win three state championships.

Meanwhile, back home, things were finally starting to settle down a bit.

Gloria managed to secure a two-bedroom apartment through a government program.

The high-rise was called Spring Hill, a name LeBron would later use for his own company.

And it was a step up for them.

But in Akron, Spring Hill still had a bit of a reputation.

Locals called it the bottom, both because it sat literally at the bottom of a hill and because of what it represented in socioeconomic terms, I guess.

So now I think we should take a pause to explain one of the biggest moments in a young baller's career, which unless you're kind of a fan of basketball, I guess you wouldn't really understand.

Now, this big event is called the NBA draft.

So every June, the NBA selects top talent.

So players who have never played professionally, who show a lot of promise, to join the league.

So if a basketballer is picked, they have to sign with the team that picked them in the draft.

So players in the draft are usually from college teams or they're just out of high school.

But the interesting thing about the NBA draft is that the worst performing teams from the previous season get first dibs.

So this is kind of a way to give them a shot at rebuilding themselves with fresh new talent, you know, fresh blood.

The system keeps things competitive because, unlike football, there's no kind of promotion or relegation leagues in basketball.

Everyone just plays at the same level.

One of the most interesting things about professional sport in America, this draft process, everyone gets professional.

So, the worst performing team gets the pick of the best players.

And it's done quite cleverly because there is no relegation or promotion.

You don't want to establish these kind of dynasties of sporting dominance where the same team wins every year.

So you mix it up a bit and saying, if you come bottom of the league, you get the best players so you can rebuild your talent.

I think it's pretty un-American.

You would never see that in soccer, football,

whatever you want to call it.

Real Madrid can buy the best players year in, year out.

Yeah.

And well, naturally, the 17-year-old LeBron was itching to be a part of the draft, and there was huge hype around him.

Fams mobbed him after games.

They were begging for autographs.

They wanted photos.

St.

Vincent St.

Mary even had to move their home games to the University of of Akron's 5,000-seat arena just to fit in the crowds that came to see him.

And this is another interesting thing about American sport.

You could be an absolute superstar when you're still in school.

Right.

I mean, college sports in America get crowds of tens of thousands every year.

And it's all televised as well, right?

Yeah, it's on every weekend.

You follow your favorite college team and it's on the major sports channels.

It's prime time.

So LeBron understandably was more than ready to go pro, but there was actually a problem.

So NBA ruse require players to graduate high school before entering the draft.

So for LeBron, that meant waiting until spring 2003.

And he wanted to fight this rue, and he said that the NBA should make an exception saying the roux not fair, but that's life.

You've got tennis players competing professionally at 14.

Why not basketball players?

Good question.

But the roux stood, so LeBron had to wait.

A quick aside here, LeBron also, at this point in his private life, met his wife, Savannah Brinson.

She was a cheerleader, a softball player, kind of version of baseball from a rival school.

The couple have three kids and have been together ever since, which is unusual for a billionaire.

Very unusual.

So well done, LeBron and Savannah.

Now, in the final year at St.

Vincent St.

Mary, the hysteria around LeBron James reaches this whole new level.

Yes, remember, he's still just a teenager playing high school basketball, but the entire country is now watching his every move.

The national press is all over him.

On February 18th, 2002, Sports Illustrated, very famous sports magazine in the U.S., put 17-year-old LeBron on its cover with three simple words, the chosen one.

The article was titled, Ahead of His Class, Ohio High School Junior.

LeBron James is so good, he's already being mentioned as the heir to Air Jordan.

People wanted someone to fill that vacuum that Jordan had occupied.

But I mean, imagine being 17 years old and being compared to Michael Jordan and being put on the cover of magazines.

I don't think I would have handled it very well if I was him.

I remember articles at the time, actually.

I was in the US around this time, and they were talking about

the court of King James.

Everyone knew he was going to be huge.

It reminded me a little bit of another one of our billionaires, Tiger Woods, who was still at college when people were saying, you've got to turn professional right now.

You're losing hundreds of millions of dollars by not being professional just because you're still in college.

That's so interesting.

And you have to wonder what happens in the minds of these young athletes who get fetered so early on.

LeBron actually in his memoir said, no one in high school deserves to be compared to Michael Jordan.

Did it go to my head?

Of course it went to my head.

I was a teenager, which is, you know, very honest of him.

Very honest of him.

But he did embrace it.

That chosen one nickname, he ended up getting it tattooed across his back.

Wow.

That's a whole new level of embracing something, isn't it?

Exactly.

To be honest, if someone called me the chosen one and I was being told I was going to be the heir to Air Jordan, I would do it too.

Okay, I'm going to call you the chosen one.

I expect you to come back next episode with a tattoo.

Somewhere, maybe a discreet one.

Okay, well then I wouldn't be able to see it and then I wouldn't believe you.

Anyway, let's carry on.

Enough of that.

This eagerness to jump the gun got LeBron into quite a bit of hot water though.

So in 2003, LeBron accepted two jerseys from a local store worth about $845 in exchange for posing for photos.

So this may not sound like a big deal, even though those jerseys sounded expensive, but under NCAA rules, amateur athletes are not allowed to profit from their athletic fame.

So that means no gifts, no money, nothing.

And the punishment for this was a two-game suspension.

So his team had to forfeit one of their wins, and it officially made it their only loss that season.

And then there was the Hummer.

What do I mean by that?

Well, around the same time, LeBron had also been seen driving around in a brand new custom-made Hummer H2.

It's a huge big SUV, kind of looks like something some kind of thing that Arnold Schwarzenegger, well, would drive, did drive, and people immediately started asking questions.

How does a high school kid afford a $50,000 SUV?

$50,000 sounds cheap to me for a Hummer, but Gloria was able to prove she'd taken out a loan to buy it as an 18th birthday present.

The NCAA closed that case with no penalty.

And this is a very interesting area because this fine line between being amateur and professional is one that's got quite blurred over the years because because you know that this person is going to be an absolute superstar worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

You want to kind of get your commercial claws into them as soon as possible.

And it's quite hard to turn these things down.

So there's a lot of rule bending that goes on around these things.

I can imagine there's a lot of gifts being sent to amateur athletes' houses with the kind of understanding that you're going to enjoy it.

Well, you've seen the film Jerry Maguire.

Do you remember that?

Jerry Maguire would be at your door saying, hey, how are you doing?

Just, you know, whenever you feel like turning pro and earning tons of money, maybe I could be your agent.

Give me a call.

Exactly.

So, all this fame, you know, clearly has its perks.

You know, picture this.

You are LeBron James, you're in high school, but you're getting invited backstage by Jay-Z.

Wow.

One of his favorite rappers, also another one of our billionaires.

So, you're casually chatting with NBA stars.

You're even talking to Michael Jordan himself.

Then there were the meetings with Adidas in LA and with Nike chairman Phil Knight in Oregon.

Those were handled by Gloria and Eddie.

So by now, everyone knew that when LeBron went pro, it wasn't just going to be big, it was going to be stratospheric.

Absolutely.

And at this point, everyone is so sure he's going to be drafted into the NBA.

And not just that, but he's going to be a massive star, so much so that major sportswear brands are queuing up to sign him.

And just like that, we are back where the story began in 2003, in that boardroom.

So that $10 million check from Reebok for signing with them immediately and taking $10 million a year for 10 years,

LeBron James, just a teenager, remember, turns it down.

Incredible.

I mean, even now, LeBron admits he can't quite believe he had the nerve to walk away from that kind of money, but he had to hear what other brands had to say.

So next up was Adidas.

They'd also been talking about $100 million.

And to put this into perspective, that figure was huge.

So nobody else had ever been offered that much at the time.

You know, Adidas was paying Kobe Bryan, an established NBA player, just just one and a half million a year.

So remember, they're willing to offer this to a teenager who has never played pro.

Yeah, incredible.

And the man behind this wheeling and dealing is a guy called Sonny Vaccaro, legendary sports marketing exec, the same guy who once signed Michael Jordan to Nike before jumping ship to Adidas.

For Sonny, this wasn't just another deal.

He later said, we were going to bet our whole future on this kid, LeBron.

Adidas seemed to agree.

The numbers checked out.

And, you know, this looks like a no-brainer, right?

LeBron already had history with Adidas.

They actually officially outfitted his fighting Irish high school team, so it made sense.

So, nine months later, Adidas flies LeBron and his team out on a private jet.

Can you imagine just how amazing that would be if you're a teenage boy on a private jet?

They take him to a Lakers playoff game, then on to Malibu, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and there they lay out the contract.

This is like something from Wolf of Wall Street.

So, LeBron, his mum Gloria, and his lawyer sit down with Sonny, but something isn't quite right.

So, the contract isn't actually the 100 million guaranteed that Adidas promised.

Instead, it's around 60 to 70 million with incentives.

And the Carroll was furious with Adidas.

He later quits, saying they've signed great players since, but no one ever has come close to what James was.

LeBron and his team felt they'd been low-balled, promised you the earth, and the cup was slightly short.

And just, it must be an amazing...

thing that watching people fall over each other to try and give you untold riches and you're just a kid.

It must be a weird experience that people who are twice, even maybe thrice or four times your age.

Yeah, I can't imagine what that would do to a young person's head.

But I suppose you get used to it over time.

Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe in another parallel universe, LeBron James debuts as a professional and crumbles under the pressure.

You know, that sometimes happens with players who go pro really young.

Suffice it to say, the commercial interests are out there.

They're fighting.

And, you know, they really did fight.

There was this huge bidding war between Nike or Reebok.

So Reebok now back in the picture.

They upped their offer to an enormous $115 million over seven years.

Nike offered between 87 to 90 million over seven years, according to varying reports.

They also threw in a $10 million signing bonus.

And in the end, Nike is who LeBron choses.

And just like that, Before he's even stepped onto an NBA court, before his hands have even touched a basketball for the NBA, LeBron James is a millionaire.

And by the end of that same year, Nike drops his first signature shoe, the Nike Air Zoom Generation 1.

Now, this seems obvious, but shoe deals are big deals for basketball players.

They often make up more than half of their off-court income.

And the comparisons between LeBron James and Michael Jordan just keep coming because it was Jordan who really started it all.

Before him, NBA players weren't making that kind of money from sneaker endorsements.

Jordan, with his Air Jordans, changed the game.

but their journeys are actually quite different.

Jordan was once cut from his high school team for being too short.

Imagine that.

That wouldn't happen to six foot nine LeBron James.

By the way, if you haven't heard our episode on Michael Jordan's Wild Rise at the top, do go back and check it out.

It's in season one.

But for LeBron, it wasn't necessarily just about the money.

Well, I'm sure the money had something to do with it, but he does say that what really sold him on Nike was their long-term vision.

So Nike didn't just want a quick deal, they wanted a partnership.

And looking back, LeBron says that signing with Nike was one of the best financial and business decisions of his life.

I always like that.

It wasn't about the money, I loved their long-term vision.

I love their strategy for the future.

Give me a break.

Let's take a moment though.

Here, LeBron James is now 18 years old.

He's already a millionaire, but fame is fickle, and even his hometown wouldn't stand by him forever.

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So let's take LeBron from a million to a billion.

It is June 26, 2003, and fresh out of high school, LeBron James is the number one pick in the NBA draft.

You know, no surprises there.

He signed with his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, as a forward.

But you remember what I said about the draft.

So the worst teams get the first dibs on players.

Yeah, I remember when LeBron James signed for the Cavs, as they call the Cleveland Cavaliers for short.

He's like, oh my gosh, he's gone to this sort of no-mark team.

They're completely useless.

No one ever's heard of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

And here's where things actually get quite interesting because John Lucas, who coached Cleveland in their losing season before the draft, later claimed that the Cavs tanked, were bad on purpose.

They deliberately made themselves the worst team in the league so they would go to the top of the list and pick the players and secure LeBron James.

According to him, they traded out their best players, they sold them, they brought in injured ones, they made sure to only play the least experienced guys.

And the team's majority owner at the time, a guy called Gordon Gunn, denied it.

But Cleveland's general manager, Jim Paxson, later admitted, was it a plan to get LeBron?

No.

Was it a plan to step back and try for a difference maker at the top of the draft?

Absolutely.

Yeah, and actually, this kind of thing is a bit of an open secret in the NBA.

You know, it's called tanking.

So teams lose on purpose to secure the top draft picks.

And, you know, obviously, it's not how it's meant to work.

So the league has tried to crack down on it.

But, you know, let's say that can be tricky.

Yeah, how do you prove it?

How do you prove it?

Like, oh, this guy just seems a little bit off his game.

You guys suck intentionally.

Yeah.

So either way, Cleveland got the big star player, LeBron James, was theirs.

And almost instantly, he starts delivering on the court.

In his very first NBA game, he sets a record for the most points scored by a high school to pro rookie.

By the end of the first season, he's rookie of the year.

By 2005, he's an NBA All-Star.

That's basically, you pick the best team, you know, the best players from each of the team and make up an all-star team.

And he hasn't missed an all-star game ever since then.

So that's almost 20 years running.

And it wasn't just personal success.

So LeBron basically transforms the Cavs.

By 2006, he leads them to their first ever playoff appearance since since 1998 and they rack up 50 wins that season.

But there is a problem.

Cleveland had a reputation for choking in the big games and in 2006 they fall short.

They lose the Detroit Pistons in the semi-finals.

Oh and about LeBron's paycheck just to bring it back to the money.

So for the first few seasons LeBron's salary isn't widely listed but by 2005-2006 he's earning $4.6 million which is solid except of course when you compare it to the highest paid player that year Shaquille O'Neal Shaq, for short, who's pulling in 20 million with the Miami Heat.

But LeBron is about to turbocharge to that income with some off-court moves.

Yes, right after signing with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he locks in a $12 million deal with Coca-Cola.

In 2007, he launched Spring Hill Entertainment, named, remember, after the housing project where he grew up.

The logo was a nod to the apartment buildings he once called home.

And Spring Hill's first big project, More Than a Game, a documentary about LeBron and his fab for teammates.

And behind the scenes, there was Maverick Carter.

What a great name.

Maverick Carter, LeBron's childhood friend and business brain.

Now, Carter started out as a Nike intern.

So he learnt the tricks of the trade, the power of storytelling and branding.

Really, Nike was at the top of its game for this at the time before he quit to become LeBron's business manager.

And the pair together would build a global empire.

I'm going to change my name to Maverick Carter.

I think I've been more successful

on radio and television.

And now the news with Maverick Carter.

It also sounds sort of faintly like something from an 80s sci-fi film.

Totally does.

Or it sounds like a Tom Cruise film for sure.

But let's go back to the court.

LeBron finally gets his MVP, that's most valuable player for the season in 2009.

That's the first time that's ever happened for someone from the Cleveland Cavaliers.

He won it again in 2010, and Cleveland bumps his salary to nearly $16 million a year.

But there is a problem, even though that is big money.

There's no championship.

LeBron's seven contracted seasons are up and now he is a free agent.

So obviously the Cavs want him back, but also five other teams are making their pitch.

So what does LeBron do?

He turns his announcement into a live ESPN as a sports channel in the US TV special called The Decision.

On the 8th of July 2010, fans tuned in to find out the answer to one question.

Where will LeBron James play next season?

He looks down.

This is very tough.

And then finally, this fall, I'm taking my talents to South Beach.

That's for the Miami Heat.

Quite interesting, the decision to televise this.

Really, it's not a million miles away from wrestling.

Yeah, well, I remember that we've got a couple of other things.

Tiger Woods at one point gave a live

press conference.

Woods off the scandal of what had happened to him.

They interrupted news programs there.

It's not unprecedented, but LeBron James was, remember, the heir to Michael Jordan.

And people wanted a hero like that.

They really wanted someone to have that kind of presence.

But, you know, understandably, turning his back on the hometown team did not go down well.

You know, Cleveland lost its mind.

On the 11 o'clock news, a local anchor called it a betrayal.

There were fans burning his jersey in the streets.

Police had to be posted outside LeBron's house for his own safety.

Yeah, you've got to love sports fans.

They're so reasonable.

They're well known for their sensible cool heads.

Cavs, the owner of the Cavs, Dan Gilbert, writes an open letter calling a shameful display of selfishness and promises that Cleveland would win a championship before LeBron ever did.

Even NBA legends Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan criticise him saying he should have fought for a title in Cleveland not joined his rivals.

That's probably going to hurt more than anything actually.

Yeah given that he was positioned as the heir to Jordan.

Exactly.

So LeBron obviously doesn't take this well.

He feels it really hard.

He said I went from being the chosen one to the villain.

It didn't feel good.

I was still living in Ohio.

You could feel it.

I can imagine, you know, if you went down to a supermarket, you get get a few dirty looks.

For sure.

But despite all this backlash, LeBron gets exactly what it was he wanted, which is victory.

Miami Heat wins back-to-back NBA titles in 2012 and 2013.

LeBron, the MVP most valuable player in the finals both years.

And in 2013, Miami goes on a 27-game winning streak, which is the second longest in NBA history.

And off the court, the money keeps rolling in.

So LeBron renews his 4 million a year deal with McDonald's.

He makes his first investment in Blaze Pizza, a tiny fast-fired pizza chain in Atlanta.

And then in 2013, he marries his high school sweetheart, Savannah, in San Diego, California.

You know, a casual low-key affair with a performance by Jay-Z and Beyoncé at the reception.

Of course, they play crazy in love.

Yes, but and that Miami heat.

That heat is beginning to cool down.

By 2014, that streak of winning is over.

They've dried up.

And you already know what LeBron's thinking is.

Time to make a move.

So there's a big homecoming for the king himself.

In 2014, he returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers with no flashy TV specials, just a heartfelt interview for Sports Illustrated, where he explained, when I left, I was on a mission to win championships, and we did, but Miami already knew that feeling.

Cleveland hasn't felt that in a long, long, long time.

My goal, bring one back to Northeast Ohio.

I love this storytelling.

Storyteller.

You can imagine him and his old friend Maverick kind of slapping each other on the back.

Oh, nice one.

Yeah, this is a perfect.

The story arc is just getting better and better and better.

But being the star he is, he delivers.

He takes Cleveland to the finals in 2015, but they lose to Golden State.

So a crushing loss.

But, you know, in terms of the finances, his paycheck is now $20.64 million,

which makes him the sixth highest paid player in the league.

I think that's pretty weird that he's only the sixth highest paid player, actually.

Anyway, 2015 was a big year for business too off-court business lebron and maverick carter launch a marketing agency called robot co and then he makes a gamble he walks away from mcdonald's he turns down 14 15 million dollars a year more to bet on blaze pizza now you could argue that mcdonald's is a bigger name than lebron james whereas lebron james is a bigger name than blaze pizza so he's clearly thinking that like a lot of our stars they realize that being a small part of a massive organization is not as lucrative as being the owner.

It's a bit like Oprah Winfrey was getting well paid, but she wanted to own the studio which produced her own show.

And they ran the numbers.

If they became franchise owners, they could make more than McDonald's was offering.

And LeBron loved the idea of building something from scratch.

And again, in professional sports, whenever there's a player strike or whatever, it's always the millionaires, the players, versus the billionaires.

The billionaires are the owners.

The team owners.

The team owners, exactly.

And you know what?

It actually worked.

So by 2017, Blaze Pizza was the fastest-growing restaurant chain in U.S.

history.

It expanded from two locations to 200 in just four years.

And his media platform, Uninterrupted, also got a $16 million boost from Warner Brothers and Turner Sports, which made it a major player in sports storytelling.

So he's got all these kind of fingers and different business pies.

Reminds me of Jay-Z as well, you know.

But the biggest deal of that year, of 2015, was a record-breaking one.

Nike offered LeBron a reported $1 billion

lifetime deal, showing the brand sees value well beyond his playing career.

And as we've seen from Jordan, that is possible.

The exact figures are kept private, but Maverick Carter hinted it's more than a billion dollars.

Lifetime deals like this are very rare.

This is thought to be Nike's first ever official one.

Only a few athletes actually land these kind of big money deals.

So, you know, footballer David Beckham got it with Adidas.

Basketball player Alan Iverson got it with Reebok.

And the question, of course, is: did it pay off for Nike?

Well, at the time, Nike's annual sales were 10.3 billion.

After the deal with LeBron, they shot up to $30.6 billion.

It's a crazy increase.

I know.

I mean, could you attribute that all to LeBron?

It'd be hard to do that, but I mean, he's clearly a big part of it.

In 2015, LeBron finally becomes the highest-paid player in the NBA, not before time, I would say, with a salary of $31 million.

In 2016, the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA finals.

LeBron LeBron was named finals MVP.

The following year, however, the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cavs in the finals.

And remember, LeBron is a man who does not like to lose, so you may already be guessing what comes next.

Yes, he gets itchy feet, LeBron, doesn't he?

Because in 2018, LeBron signed a four-year, $153 million contract with the LA Lakers, even though he'd previously said he always believed he would return to Cleveland to finish his career.

So even though Stephen Curry became the paid player that year, LeBron still earned $36 million in his first season with the Lakers.

And that same year, he became the youngest player to score 30,000 career points, surpassing Kobe Bryant or undershooting age-wise, Kobe Bryant.

So in 2020, the Lakers won the NBA Finals.

They defeated the Miami Heat.

That's his old team, remember, and LeBron was named finals MVP for the fourth time.

And that remains his most recent finals MVP as of now.

But his career is actually far from over.

Yes, remember, LeBron is 35 years old when he wins that NBA championship, so pretty old for a top-level sports player.

Average retirement age in the NBA is just 28, so it makes sense that he's already beginning to future-proof financially his career.

In 2020, he merged his company Spring Hill Entertainment.

Uninterrupted and Robot Co.

to found Spring Hill Co., which is a development and production company with Maverick Carter.

They raise $100 million from outside investors to get it off the ground.

And investors quickly jump on board.

So Guggenheim Partners, Elizabeth Murdoch, that's Rupert Murdoch's daughter.

Her production company's sister is in.

Stacey Snyder, Jane Featherstone, even Serena Williams joined the board.

So really a kind of almost like an MVP list of people you'd want to get money from if you were launching a production company.

Sport, investing, and

show business royalty there.

Spring Hill Co.

gets a glowing write-up in Bloomberg, the financial news service.

It describes it as, this is quite good, I think, part Disney storytelling power, part Nike coolness, and part Patagonia social impact.

They focus on sports-themed projects like a 2019 documentary about Muhammad Ali and the 2021 sequel to Space Jam that features in our Michael Jordan episode, with LeBron stepping into the shoes of his old icon.

They also produce shows like Self-Made about black hair care mogul Madam C.J.

Walker.

And a year later, LeBron sold a minority stake in Spring Hill to investors, the company was valued at that point at $725 million.

Among the new backers, Redbird Capital, Fenway Sports Group, Nike and Epic Games.

And LeBron, who serves as chairman, Carter as CEO, they retain a controlling interest.

LeBron is still the company's largest single shareholder, although we think he's got less than 50%.

And then in 2021, LeBron makes a business move that mirrors his basketball career.

He jumps ship for a rival team.

He leaves Coca-Cola for Pepsi to promote Mountain Dew, and the exact sum was not disclosed, but you can bet it was a lot of money.

Do you think it wasn't about the money?

I just like the long-term vision of Mountain Dew.

I, yeah, I've never actually drunk Mountain Dew.

What even does it taste like?

It's kind of like a kind of

sprite.

It is unusual.

It's different from anything.

It's not like Sprite.

No.

Anyway, all these ventures drive LeBron's wealth skyward.

By 2022, Forbes declares him a billionaire.

They estimate his net worth at $1.2 billion.

Of that, $385 million comes from basketball, while the rest, over $900 million, come from endorsements and business ventures that we have just been discussing.

Now, his largest earner is Spring Hill Coal.

Now, that rakes in an estimated 300 million.

He's also pocketing 90 million from his stake in Fenway Sports Group, 80 million in real estate, 30 million from Blaze Pizza, and over 500 million from other investments like Beats by Dre and Beachbody.

And LeBron has been dreaming of billionaire status for years.

In 2014, he told GQ, if it happens, it's my biggest milestone.

Obviously, I want to maximize my business.

And if I happen to get it, hip, hip, hooray.

Oh my God, he says, I'm going to be excited.

So let's take a beat here.

LeBron James, officially a billionaire.

And it seems like he actually likes the business bit more than the basketball.

Also, quite, I don't remember many of our billionaires sort of having billionaire status as the target.

It sort of happened along the way.

Along the way.

The friends with the billions we made along the way.

He clearly had this kind of figure in mind.

So he's

our kind of billionaire because, you know, it matters, this threshold matters to him.

Yeah.

I mean, it's funny because it seems like even from the very young age, he was already thinking with a business hat on.

Yeah, no, for sure.

So let's take LeBron to beyond a billion.

So in 2024,

LeBron James fulfilled a long-time ambition by playing alongside his 20-year-old son, LeBron James Jr., aka Bronny.

So they actually become, this is quite sweet, the NBA's first ever father-son duo.

I can't think of that happening in any other sport.

Maybe it has.

I'm sure people will get in touch with it if they have.

Quite weird too.

Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't expect to see Beckham's son playing alongside Beckham.

Although maybe, you know, I'm sure that has been mooted to them in the past.

Yeah.

But not everything has been smooth sailing.

No.

So Bronny hasn't exactly wowed the crowds with his performances.

So they've been sparking accusations of nepotism, you know, Nepal Baby, that's the term you hear hurled around all the time nowadays.

Opposing crowds, and this is quite cruel, I think, have even mocked him.

They've begged the Lakers coach to put him on.

And this has all understandably triggered a rather protective side to his dad.

LeBron actually got into a court side argument with an ESPN commentator after he criticized Bronny.

And according to his son, LeBron swore at the commentator, telling him to stop messing with his son.

The whole incident was filmed by fans.

It got quite ugly.

Yeah, I love the idea of the opposition fans begging them to bring him on because this happens in football and soccer.

When basically, if you're trying to taunt a really good side, you say, can we play you every week?

They start singing that, which I love as a put-down.

Can we play you every week?

You have to give it the sports fans.

They can be very creative.

They can be creative, cruel, and hilarious sometimes.

Meanwhile, Spring Hill, the company, made waves in November 2024 with its merger with Fullwell 73.

This is the British production company behind Carpool Karaoke and live events like the Grammy Awards and backed by big investors like Fenway Sports Group, who, by the way, own my team, Liverpool FC.

And I understand LeBron James is a big Liverpool fan.

I'm not going to let that influence my judgment of whether he's good, bad, or just another billionaire, but just saying.

Redbird Capital Partners, Nike and Epic Games.

So some big names.

The deal didn't involve any immediate financial exchanges, but existing shareholders are putting in an extra $40 million into some new growth initiatives.

As of now, the merged company doesn't even have a name.

And then on December 30th, 2024, LeBron James turned 40 years old.

He actually became the first NBA player in history to play professionally in his teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s.

So that is four decades worth of being on the court.

Amazing.

And at 40, he's well beyond the average NBA retirement age of 28.

But he's not ready to ride off into sunset just yet.

On his birthday, he mentioned he could keep playing for another five to seven years, although he has hinted he might retire sooner, adding he hopes to finish his career with the LA Lakers.

But the clock's ticking.

You know, LeBron's been battling injuries recently, so maybe, just maybe, retirement is closer than we think.

Although playing into your late 40s for the NBA is quite the achievement.

Yeah, it's a very, very high-intense physical game.

And also, he says he hopes to finish his career with the Lakers.

He said that about 10 years ago, didn't he, with the Cavs.

So who knows?

Maybe he's got one more move left in him.

A few more years to jump ship back to the Cavs.

But congratulations for being the only active NBA player ever to be a billionaire.

And now we're going to have a look and rate him out of a few categories, which we like to do at the end of these shows.

Yes, so we usually score our billionaires from 0 to 10 on a number of categories, including, you know, wealth, villainy, whether they give back, how much power they have.

So let's start with the first category, wealth.

So how rich is LeBron James?

Well, he owns at least three properties together worth around $80 million.

Got that $2 million Akron house bought at 18.

That was later torn down, by the way, to build a 30,000 square foot mansion featuring a recording studio, a movie theater, aquarium, barbershop, bowling alley, sports bar, and two-storey walk-in closet.

I mean, it doesn't sound like a mansion.

It sounds like a small town.

A big hotel or a small town, yes.

I mean, he's big into property.

There is also a Beverly Hills mansion that he bought for $37 million.

That has ocean views, two guest houses, movie theater, tennis court.

You know, he knows how to spend money.

Yeah, he's also got an eight-bedroom estate in Brentwood, LA for $23 million.

I feel like an estate agent here.

Yeah, he does own quite a lot of houses, but he also owns cars.

He compares it to his wife's collection of handbags.

So he's got Rolls-Royce, Porsche, Bentleys, Lamborghinis.

You know, he is living the life of a billionaire.

And he's got some hobbies.

He competes in something called the UIM E1 World Championship, which is the world's first all-electric racing boat championship.

He invested in his own electric race boat team in 2025.

Other famous investors include Tom Brady, big American football star, Will Smith, needs no introduction, Rafael Nadal, Virat Kohli, Indian cricketer, and Mark Anthony, who I think is a singer.

Am I right?

He is a singer.

And LeBron, he wants to own his own NBA team at some point.

Yeah, he's already an investor, as we said, in Fenway Sports Group, which owns stakes in basketball, football, and hockey teams.

But of course, wealth isn't just about how much money they have and how they'd like to spend it.

We also talk about their journey to earning a billion NBA.

How far have they come from where they started?

And he's come quite away.

Miles.

I mean, he definitely scores pretty highly here.

Remember, he talks about how he saw drugs, killings, gangland, whatever.

They were living in the projects.

Even when they moved up a gear, they were still living in the place where people called the bottom.

Yeah, his mum's home life was so unstable at one point she just gave him up.

Yeah.

He didn't know his biological father.

The stand-in father was in and out of jail.

So a very tough upbringing for him.

So I think I'm going to give him a high school for this.

I'm going to give him a solid seven for this.

I think I would go a bit higher and give him an eight because we haven't had that many billionaires who've come from truly quite modest, humble beginnings.

Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah Winfrey was one of them.

Jay-Z was another one of them.

You know, I think the figure's probably in single digits by now.

Okay.

All right.

Seven from me, eight from you.

Villainy.

This is when we sort of say what sharp moves have they made?

Where have they sort of pushed the boundaries a little bit?

He does have a habit of jumping ship every time a team starts losing.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, loyalty is not something.

If there was a loyalty category, I'd be giving him a very low score.

But, you know, in terms of sporting ruthlessness, you know, some people would say that is the right thing to do.

You can't hitch your wagon to a losing team.

Sometimes you've got to make that move.

And also, there's always the money.

But understandably, the fans are not always happy with that because, you know, if you're coming from a fan perspective, you think you want someone who puts the graft in, who works with the team to make them better.

You know, LeBron was described as immature, disrespectful, bossy, difficult to work with by some critics after that big decision kind of TV special where he decided to jump ship.

Yeah, and also with commercial partnerships, there's been a few criticisms, for example, not being critical of China's human rights record.

He has been known as a pretty vocal advocate for human rights issues in the US.

But China is a key market for the NBA and for sellers of basketball related products like Nike.

Like other stars, his commitments with both see LeBron traveling to the country pretty regularly.

And you know, I think a lot of um sports stars would say some of this is above their pay grade, even though they are paid phenomenal amounts of money.

You know, Nike is the number one sporting label in the world and counts countless sports stars among its roster of indoor seas.

So I don't think he can be singled out for that particularly.

So for Villainy, I'm going to give him one.

Maybe if I was a Cavs fan, I'd be pretty annoyed.

I mean, I would agree.

So, you know, one out of ten, I'm sure if you are a fan of one of the teams that LeBron jumped ship from in search of greater teams, you'll probably disagree with that.

If you were one of the people who was burning his shirt after he left for the Miami Heat, you would be giving him a 10, but we're going to give him one.

Giving back.

This is the sort of philanthropy, the kind of helping people.

Yeah, so he's launched the LeBron James Family Foundation.

They focus on education, co-curricular initiatives for young people.

They've helped around 1,600 students and their families in his hometown in Ohio.

They do seem to do kind of a lot of outreach in his local neighborhood.

So, you know, they support third graders at risk of falling behind in schools.

They've provided families with need of safe, stable shelter.

You know, they've opened a kind of housing initiative with 50 affordable apartments for families on the program.

You know, he seems very, I guess he gives back to the local community.

He opened his first elementary school in 2018 and pledged over $40 million to help students attend college.

So, you know, real grassroots stuff rather than big gesture, kind of, you know, giving pledge, Warren Buffett style.

I think that's pretty okay, Tossing this all up, I'm guessing something around 100 million, maybe,

which out of 1.2 billion, pretty good.

Yeah, it's not that bad.

So I think, you know, I would score him quite highly.

So maybe seven out of 10.

Yeah, maybe I'll go with seven as well.

So giving back seven.

And then we have power.

Interesting one with sports stars, this one.

It's quite hard to quantify.

Yes, exactly.

Because, you know, LeBron has come out in support of specific politicians.

He supported Obama in 2008, Clinton in 2016, Biden-Harris in 2020.

You know, he's actually been very vocal about Trump.

He's criticized Trump's use of sports to divide.

And he actually also in 2024 told his followers on X to vote for Kamala Harris.

He's actually, unlike a lot of billionaires, actually endorsed politicians.

Yeah, and has got into spats with Donald Trump.

And they've exchanged insults on Twitter in the past.

He's also been a figurehead in 2020's more than a vote movement, which stressed the need for people, particularly black people, to vote to fight disenfranchisement.

Yeah, he consistently speaks out on issues like police violence, racial injustice.

He honoured Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Trayvon was, of course, the young man fatally shot by a neighborhood watch captain.

He had a hoodie out, you know, commemorating Trayvon.

In 2014, he wore I Can't Breathe t-shirts of the Cavaliers.

So power, I mean, it's difficult, isn't it?

I mean, hugely inspirational, a great hero to many people.

He's becoming quite a big noise in the sports world with ownership stakes as well as his playing record.

But I still wouldn't give him a lot in terms of power.

Well, it's interesting because I think if this was pre-2024 US election, I would have said celebrity endorsements are really important in politics.

And then you get the 2024 election

and Kamala Harris had so many people line up behind her.

And, you know, Trump had a few country stars, some people that probably, if you weren't in the States, you wouldn't know the names of.

And he still won.

So I think I would actually kind of score him lower than I would have done maybe two years ago.

Maybe, yeah, I agree.

I agree.

I'm going to give him two for power.

Yeah, I'm going to give him three.

Okay.

Three out of ten.

Okay.

And so we have to decide if we think, and we're interested in what you think, whether he's a good, bad, or just another billionaire.

Listen, I'm a huge sports fan.

So I think sports heroes are great, generally speaking.

I like them.

But that doesn't weigh on their merit or morality or whatever.

So I'm going to say LeBron James is just another billionaire.

I mean, I am not a sports fan.

I feel like I almost shouldn't weigh in on this because I don't follow basketball at all.

I'm sure people listening in may have very strong opinions on LeBron James.

So, for me, he is just another billionaire.

So, that's it for this episode.

That's the slam dunk.

We're over.

Yeah, we've decided we're each other's MVPs.

So, who have we got next episode?

Mining magnate, playboy, man who attended meetings being wheeled in on a gurney attached to a drip with a sports car in his living room.

Who is this incredible person?

He was at one point Brazil's richest man, the Brazilianaire Excellence.

And seventh richest person in the whole world.

He said he wanted to unseat Bill Gates, who at that time was the richest man in the world.

Didn't quite get there, but pretty close.

Yeah, he did get pretty close and he did uncover a lot of gold while doing it.

That is Aiky Batista.

Listen out for him on the new episode of Good Bad Billionaire.

Take a moment to share your thoughts by sending a text, voice note or WhatsApp to plus1-917-686-1176.

Or you can send us an email to goodbadbillionaire at bbc.com.

You can find both linked below in the episode description.

Thanks for joining us.

You've been listening to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.

This episode was produced by Louise Morris.

Our researcher was Annie Rose Harrison Dutton, and our editor Paul Smith.