LeBron James is probably the most famous basketball player in the world right now. Maybe not the most famous, but certainly the most famous playing today. Yes, cherubic Steph Curry is the player everyone’s kid wants to emulate, mostly because he looks like them, but LeBron is still LeBron and his level of fame and drawing power merely intensified after he led the Cavs to their first title in franchise history after coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals — the first time that’s ever happened — against a favored, 73-win juggernaut.
You could say he’s reached the pinnacle of his profession, and that’s part of why he signed the largest per-year contract in the NBA this offseason, despite how much it’ll cost him when the salary cap rises again next summer.
Even with that pay increase, and with the max deal he’ll likely sign in the summer of 2018 when he can opt out, LeBron still has a long way to go to reach NBA ownership levels of wealth. But it’s his “dream to actually own” an NBA team.
James’ remarks about owning an NBA team came on the first episode of a new podcast for Uninterrupted (by way of the The Plain Dealer), the relatively new platform he created for athletes.
After hosts Jesse Williams (an actor) and Stefan Marolachakis asked about whether he wanted to be a general manager some day, here’s what LeBron said:
“I feel like my brain as far as the game of basketball is unique and I would love to continue to give my knowledge to the game. And I would love to be a part of a franchise, if not at the top. My dream is to actually own a team and I don’t need to have fully hands on. If I’m fortunate enough to own a team, then I’m going to hire the best GM and president that I can.
“But I have a feel like I have a good eye for not only talent, because we all see a lot of talent, but the things that make the talent, the chemistry, what type of guy he is, his work ethic, his passion, the basketball IQ side of things, because talent only goes so far.”
Funny thing. That’s been my dream for a while as well.
You see, Michael Jordan is the only former player to own a team, and he also happens to be the only black majority owner. Those two tidbits intertwine, too, because African-Americans make up an overwhelming majority of the players in the NBA; they’re the on-court workers who make the product fans love to watch. Except, they’re still limited by their earning power within the NBA, one that falls well below the level needed for ownership: the max-salary contract.
Kevin Garnett has made the most on-court money in NBA history, and was supposed to team with Flip Saunders to purchase a stake in the Timberwolves when he retired. But with Flip’s untimely passing, it’s not clear if that’s still something that will transpire, and KG certainly doesn’t make enough off the court to significantly change that reality.
It’s really hard to own an NBA team. Setting aside the wealth needed, there are already a number of billionaires who want that feather in their cap. It’s a growth market, but even if it wasn’t, owning an NBA team provides the proper amount of public fluffing that can sate the astronomical ego of a billionaire — like the most conspicuous bit of consumption possible.
How else do you explain former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer paying a record $2.1 billion to procure the Clippers after Forbes had valued them at $575 million earlier that same year? The same could be said for the Bucks, who were deemed the least valuable team in the NBA, according to that same Forbes report. But, later, they were sold for $150 million more than the figure Forbes attached to them.
Despite how cutthroat the competition might be among billionaires to own an NBA team, it’s the money that’s really at issue, though, even for someone like LeBron, who makes a ton of money off the floor — Forbes recently estimated he’ll pull in $77 million this year.
Michael Jordan still makes over $100 million a year from Jordan Brand, and it’s probably substantially more than that report from a couple years ago. He’s also a billionaire — the first pro athlete to reach that level of wealth. With inflation, you’d think there would be more NBA players who would follow suit because MJ retired (the last time) back in 2003, but you would be wrong. We’re still waiting for the next former NBA player to take over the ownership reins of a franchise. I hope we’re not holding our breath.
We dream of LeBron and Kevin Durant, and Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant maybe owning a team one day. Except, there’s one bulwark that prevents that dream from jutting into reality: NBA superstars are fabulously underpaid relative to their market value. At the same time, the NBA’s middle class is lavished with money that many feel like they shouldn’t get, or that is substantially higher than the return on investment they provide as a player on the court, and as an entity who can drive ticket and merchandise sales (and really all Basketball-Related Income — BRI).
Superstars are why viewers tune in. Do you think Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals would have had 30.8 million viewers if LeBron James and Steph Curry weren’t involved? And that viewership mark was the highest for an NBA Finals game since, you guessed it, Michael Jordan won his last NBA title in 1998.
Except, the cap on maximum salaries will always prevent players like LeBron, or Steph Curry, or Kevin Durant or any other NBA superstar from being paid what they’re actually worth. It’s partially why LeBron was previously tabbed to lead the charge doing away with max contracts.
But with a deliberations about a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) already under way, more than a year before either the Players’ Union or NBA ownership can opt out of the 2011 CBA accord, it’s unlikely that ever happens. And so it’s unlikely any superstar will be paid their worth by their NBA team; and it’s unlikely any former player makes enough money to join MJ as an NBA owner.
So — like LeBron — we dream about a day when NBA superstars are paid by how much revenue they make for the NBA, and can ascend to a level of affluence necessary to own an NBA team. If you’re an NBA fan, you should dream about this, too, because it’s in the best interests of the league. LeBron’s trajectory to NBA ownership is a real life Ragged Dick story, but because it’s real life, it’s probably something we’ll just dream about. Maybe if enough of us dream about it, public pressure can mold it into reality.
