Sure, I’d love it if LeBron handled his announcement the way that Kevin Durant did, but this hour-long decision special is going to earn $2.5 million for the Boys & Girls Club, according to LeBron’s right-hand man, Maverick Carter. (Link: Darren Rovell)
As part of the deal with ESPN, James’ business team, LRMR Marketing, was given ad inventory to sell.
They sold co-presenting sponsorships to the University of Phoenix and Bing, with McDonald’s and Sprite also having commercials in the show.
James’ team isn’t saying how much in total was raised, but Maverick Carter, CEO of LRMR, did say on Thursday afternoon that more than $2 million in net proceeds will go to the Boys & Girls Club of America. Vitaminwater and Nike also contributed in the charitable effort.
“LeBron’s decision has generated an incredible amount of interest, and we decided to make his announcement on national television,” Carter said, in a statement. “We are donating the proceeds from the program, totaling $2.5 million, to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America…LeBron has a longstanding commitment to giving back to the community and has worked with the Boys & Girls Clubs in cities across the country.”
His decision is going to get a lot of attention, so I guess it’s not a totally narcissistic thing to do to hold an hour-long special and generate a nice tidy sum for charity.
Rovell also had this to say about a previous report about how long LeBron will wait to announce his decision.
Dowley did say, contrary to what ESPN had said yesterday, that LeBron won’t announce what team he is going to within the first 15 minutes of the show.
Sigh.
