When the Lakers agreed to a new four-year max contract with LeBron James on July 1, his jersey flew off the shelves at an historic rate, becoming the NBA’s highest-selling jersey over night.
LeBron’s arrival in L.A. will be great for Lakers business in all aspects, from ticket sales to merchandise sales to TV ad revenue for Spectrum SportsNet. However, if you go onto the official Lakers store site, you’ll notice that the official Nike Swingman uniforms and Nike shirseys for LeBron don’t have an official image with them yet, even though the paperwork has long since been signed making his move to L.A. official.
The Fanatics branded jerseys are in, but the Nike Swingmans are still conspicuously blank, for now. On Tuesday, ESPN’s Arash Markazi may have figured out why when he dropped by the physical Lakers store to check out the new shirsey drop from Nike, which shows a return to the classic Showtime Lakers look may be on its way to L.A.
Do you notice a difference between the Lakers jersey shirts from last season and the ones that were just released today? What do you think? pic.twitter.com/Dg1yYDLrc9
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) July 24, 2018
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) July 24, 2018
It would not be surprising that Nike and the Lakers would want to make a statement with the uniforms for this season as they enter the LeBron-era, and harkening back to the Showtime era figures to play very well in L.A. This also could be just a special retro look run they do for LeBron shirts, but it seems likely that it’s something more. We’ll have to wait until closer to the season for an official announcement regarding any updates or tweaks to the Lakers’ unis, but a “Return to Showtime” branding for the LeBron-led Lakers seems like too easy a marketing ploy not to happen.
