Can't say the young fella doesn't have ambition. What is he - 21 years old? Of course, a lot of obstacles could occur within two years, but gotta tip one's hat to the drive of the young.
Advertising Age - LeBron James Company Plans Global Icon Status by 2008 LeBron James Company Plans Global Icon Status by 2008By the time the United States Olympic team arrives in Beijing, China, on that day for the 2008 Summer Games, plans are in place to make basketball star LeBron James -- make that Brand LeBron -- into a global icon.
With plenty of help from Mr. James himself.
“As we're building our relationships, I don't look at it as endorsement deals,” Mr. James said Monday at the inaugural LRMR Marketing Summit at the University of Akron, the superstar's hometown. “Maybe I did when I was younger. Now that I'm trying to form a business company, I look at you guys as partners.”LRMR Marketing is the sports marketing firm the Cleveland Cavaliers player formed with childhood friends Randy Mims, Maverick Carter and Rich Paul after his much-discussed May, 2005 split with agent Aaron Goodwin, who helped negotiate Mr. James' $90 million deal with Nike.
LRMR invited representatives from the companies that Mr. James currently has endorsement deals with -- Coca-Cola, Nike, Microsoft, Bubblicious and Upper Deck trading cards, as well as several other small marketers -- to share ideas on how to slowly but surely build the LeBron brand.August 8, 2008 -- or 08/08/08, which was in printed material handed out at the summit as well as emblazoned on several new black Nike “Witness” T-shirts -- is the target date. The goal is to turn Mr. James into the next Pele or Muhammad Ali, athletes who transcended their respective sports on a global stage.
I guess getting an MBA isn't worth much these days anyway.
Tags: Basketball, /Cleveland_ Cavaliers, /NBA
Lebron James has an endorsement deal with Bubblicious? Does anyone else find that weird?