Tuesday, September 22, 2009

NBA's Superstar May Become a Knick

By Maury Lomax

Rumblings have formed this week that make it appear to be further probable that LeBron James will sign with the New York Knicks following this year.

When LeBron becomes a free agent after the end of the 2010 season, the Cleveland Cavaliers will end up in the top position to re-sign him. This is due to the Larry Bird clause, which allows a team to go over the salary limit in order to retain their own free mediator.

The Knicks will offer James a huge deal, but they will not know how to offer LeBron as the same amount as Cleveland. So they became innovative in the big city and found a way to bypass that blasted salary cap.

The rumor is that the Knicks will not only offer LeBron a huge contract, however furthermore his own cable television network. As you may know, the Knicks are wholly owned by Cablevision, a cable TV giant.

LeBron might earn income from the advertisers on his cable network. As per basketball rules, the team would not be allowed to set up these endorsements/advertisers for LeBron; he would need to handle that on his own. But I think we would all acknowledge that LeBron has enough connections in the commercial sphere to make it happen.

Assumption is that the channel would broadcast replays of Knicks games (whose rights are owned by Cablevision), in addition to other content about LeBron, the Knicks, along with the league. Some have even forecasted that Nike would want to be drawn in and produce their own television series.

The big question is whether the NBA would agree to this. It seems to be totally within league rules. The cable television network would be seen as having a peripheral advantage of playing in NY, comparable to a diversity of other marketing perks that come from playing in a particular city. The income might be perceived as non-basketball related proceeds.

This is a new and interesting twist in the LeBron-to-be-a-free agent story. The general consensus is that the Cavs are winning the stakes. Possibly that is starting to change?

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