
The Sports Bubble Is About to Pop - gabbo
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/06/the-sports-bubble-is-about-to-pop.html
======
btrautsc
There is a major logical error in this post.

"Sports" is not about to pop. Anecdotally, I would assert sports (NFL, NBA,
futbol/ soccer) seem to be growing more popular to every day people.

What is potentially about to pop is the "entertainment" apparatus around
Sports. Ie ESPN's programming the majority of hours per day that sporting
contests are not airing.

It feels like ESPN is going the way of MTV. I doubt that music is less popular
than it was in the 90s, but the one of its strongest previous consumption
channels was disrupted by dozens of access/ consumption points - and
simultaneously instead of dedicating themselves to airing music videos, MTV
began to divert a lot of their airwaves (and I would assume resources) to
reality TV and non-music video content.

ESPN (specifically) is in a similar position. On one hand, they appear to be
working hard to offer streaming options - but they haven't gone all in on any
type of consumption based or bulk access (to my knowledge)...

Instead, they put "characters" like Mike&Mike or Stephen A Smith to put on
shows that are related to sports.

Unfortunately for ESPN there are too many content options (as well as
competing sources for contract rights) for them to skate on thinly veiled
sitcom characters and _very_ poor quality highlights in a world where we
aren't locked in to 1 or 3 "channels" to access what is happening in the
Sports world.

~~~
wtvanhest
To answer some of the questions you are getting about the logical error:

The logical error is assuming that sports franchises are overvalued just
because the entertainment options that report on sports (ESPN) may be
overvalued.

The OP is saying that reddit/r/cfb, reddit/r/nba, bleacher report, twitter,
youtube etc. all now actively compete against ESPN's cash cow, highlights /
analysis.

People are tuning in to live sports more than ever, and sports are the only
consistent option for TV advertisers to capture viewers due to the importance
of watching sports live.

Several major college football conferences will be renegotiating their TV
rights over the next 36 months, including the Big 10. Most people expect it to
be the highest price ever paid for TV rights because there are so few 'live'
options left for advertisers and the Big 10's viewership is increasing
rapidly. At the same time, less and less people think ESPN is important.

~~~
chrismcb
Is it really the case that fewer people think ESPN is important or is that
more people think cable is useless and dropping it. Many of which didn't watch
ESPN to begin with. The real issue is the non sports watchers are no longer
subsidizing the sports watchers. B

~~~
wtvanhest
I believe that is the real issue. I didn't want to include it in the parent to
keep it clear so I wrote it below.

------
padobson
_Don’t buy ESPN’s PR talk that its 7 million-household dip in subscribers is
just a blip._

 _When ESPN was adding subscribers, the $6.50 per-month-per-subscriber it
charges to every cable operator meant $78 of additional annual profit for each
new subscriber._

7,000,000 * $78 = $546,000,000

Yeah, that's definitely not a blip.

The reason this affects sports leagues is because a huge chunk of their
revenue comes from TV.

ESPN pays the NFL nearly $2B per year[1] just for Monday Night Football - or
roughly 16 games a year. That's more than $100mm per game.

It's becoming pretty clear that ESPN isn't going to be able to afford TV
rights deals like that for much longer. Which means the NFL is going to have
to find someone else (there is no one else) or reduce its prices. When the
sports league revenue drops, collective bargaining agreements will be
disrupted and the result will be labor unrest and (potentially) team
bankruptcy.

It's going to be entertaining to watch the entire industry implode before our
eyes. When it's all over, we'll be able to enjoy sports as they should be -
any game, streaming for a reasonable price, no blackout dates or other
restrictions.

It's a shame an entire industry has to collapse to get a good user experience.

[1][http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/sports/football/espn-
exten...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/sports/football/espn-extends-deal-
with-nfl-for-15-billion.html)

~~~
Deregibus
> Which means the NFL is going to have to find someone else (there is no one
> else)

Except NBC, CBS, FOX, Yahoo (hah), and the NFL itself via NFL Network, all of
which already have contracts with the NFL which are worth more combined than
ESPN's. For the NFL, having ESPN drop out would probably be a blip.

~~~
DeBraid
> For the NFL, having ESPN drop out would probably be a blip.

Perhaps, but worth noting that when NHL ended their relationship with ESPN
business suffered.

While NFL is much larger, w/ greater and more diverse revenues, NHL suffered
all sorts of unintended consequences, like reduced exposure when ESPN
deprioritized hockey highlight packages.

~~~
ascagnel_
The NHL isn't the greatest example (they left ESPN the same year they also
skipped a season with a lockout to implement a hard salary cap), but it's the
best of the major leagues.

* They had a small national contract with NBC and showed top games on OLN, a tiny cable sports network that mostly showed fishing. * OLN became Versus, which later became NBCSN (after Comcast & NBC-Universal merged). NBC airs the higher-profile games (many playoff games, marquee weekend matchups, and most outdoor games), so cable ratings will be a bit lower as a result. * Looking at the ratings for the final round, they're up more than 100% over the current period (2007 averaged a 1.2 rating, while last year's final scored a 3.2 rating; these ratings fluctuate greatly based on the teams taking part).

The NHL is interesting, since the hard cap puts them in a position to be able
to slowly ratchet down without putting as much pressure on teams. On top of
that, hockey has always been more gate-driven than TV-revenue-driven, so as
long as attendance figures stay high, they'll be OK.

------
vinceguidry
This is why we can't have nice things.

The argument for bundling is that it subsidizes production of the long tail of
TV programming that would never exist if each production had to stand on its
own feet.

But cable providers can't be satisfied with the status quo. They want more and
more money, so they are killing the golden goose. Americans were perfectly
willing to pay $30-50 a month for cable. Industry greed has kicked that up to
$70-80.

It boggles my mind how utterly stupid they were to, not just negligently let
this happen, but to work as hard as they can to force consumers to look for
cheaper alternatives.

~~~
wfo
The scenario is as follows: ESPN is the reason people buy cable. Without it
cable is dead. Cable companies MUST have ESPN so ESPN has an enormous amount
of leverage and use it to extract as much cash as possible. In this case cable
providers are just the middlemen; either they say no to ESPN and lose all
their subscribers, or raise the rates to untenable levels slowly and
eventually lose all their subscribers while making a boat load of cash on the
way. They unsurprisingly chose option B.

~~~
cjf4
Yeah, cable TV is ESPN and vice versa. Cable TV was basically invented by ESPN
and ESPN will die (at least as it currently exists) with cable.

------
hannob
This is interesting in light of another trend: Just recently the citizens of
Hamburg rejected having the Olympics in the city in a referendum. And they
weren't the first, a number of cities have rejected major sports events when
the people were asked.

What's going on there is imho quite similar: By default it's expected that the
costs of major sports events are largely payed by the public. But a large part
of the population has no interest in that and asks why they should pay to make
people rich that they don't care about.

It seems the sports complex is in large partsdepend ing on income payed by
people that don't care about it. It's only good if that's going to end. Sports
events should be payed for by the people who like it, not by everyone else.

~~~
tallanvor
The issues with the Olympics are a bit different. Cities and countries are
looking at the costs and realize that, for the most part, there's no way for
them to recoup the money they'd have to spend on the infrastructure. Plus, at
least in Norway, people were really unhappy with the demands of the IOC -
among other things, there were silly demands such as a cocktail reception with
the king, and a bunch of other perks that don't sit well with people.

------
skrowl
I cut the cord 5 years ago now. I haven't looked back. Live sports is really
the ONLY thing I miss, but you can go out to dinner at a bar a couple times a
month for what cable was charging you.

~~~
merpnderp
Same here. And the best thing about it is how little time I spend watching
crappy TV. What I do watch, I watch on purpose at the time I choose. And even
buying TV shows to watch current seasons, I still only spend about 50% of what
I used to spend on cable, including Netflix and Amazon subscriptions (and
Amazon shouldn't really count since I don't buy it for the video access).

------
brianwawok
Sports is the main reason I don't have cable. Would I pay $20 for a few HGTV
channels, and a few Discovery channels, and HBO? Sure. Would I pay $50 for the
same + 20 sports channels? Nope, sports have 0 value to me.

Not a huge loss though, netflix helps make up for missing content.

~~~
kodablah
Conversely sports is the only reason I do have cable. Maybe these dinosaurs
are realizing that the casual sports watcher (i.e. not me) aren't willing to
be forced into a specific delivery system.

~~~
btrautsc
Same here. (and I have the most basic package).. Right now, for me dedicated
streaming NBA/ NFL are too expensive or tied to specific cable subscriptions.

------
ssharp
The NBA just entered a massive television deal that kicks in next year. Since
player's salaries are tied to the amount of revenue the league makes, a lot of
players stand to make upwards of 50% more than they make now. It's a massive
deal, so it's hard to swallow any impending doom. I just think viewership will
continue adjusting where they get their content from.

I haven't seen anything about changes to streaming in the new deal other than
the contract leaves the issue open for negotiating a joint-partnership that
could supersede previous limitations, which included teams in your local
market, nationally televised games, and the playoffs.

I absolutely love NBA basketball and although I don't watch a ton of it, it
probably makes up for 90% of my television watching while it's in season. But
I have to pay a cable bill upwards of $100 / month to do so. I really hope
professional sports follows the decoupling model and offers higher-value
streaming options in the future.

The NFL's online offering is equally restricting, but local NFL games are
generally broadcast over-the-air, so you can pick them up with an antenna,
making cord-cutting easier.

~~~
harryh
You should look into NBA League Pass. $200 for everything.

~~~
fredleblanc
The current problem with all of these deals is blacked out games. I subscribe
to the NHL GameCenter (same thing, different sport) and for the money you pay,
the things you can't watch are ridiculous (it's worse than the NBA one). Only
out of market games are allowed, no nationally televised games (always
considered "in market," even if they're showing on obscure channels), and the
NHL doesn't give you _any_ of the post season. I follow an out of town team
that's bad, so it works for me.

It's the weird straddling of "old model" and "new model," and the big players
trying to catch up while keeping contracts happy. Up until this year, for
example, when I watched my team play on their home channel, I'd get all the
commercials too. So, same as being in-state. Now I just get a message about a
commercial break.

The weird crux of it all is that you _can_ watch many of the games if you want
to wait 48 hours after the broadcast ends. However, in a world so connected,
even not being on social media, even following a team 2,000 miles away from
me, it's _still_ hard to be purposefully oblivious to what's happening.

I was sorta hoping the next round of contracts would leap the content divide
and make streaming a first-class citizen along the rest (I don't mind watching
commercials while streaming, I'd assume that would just make those spots even
more lucrative.) But it looks like we're still a couple years away from that.

~~~
untothebreach
Yea, the Red Wings are the _one_ thing I miss after cutting the cord. The only
option for me other than GC is going to a bar, and for a few reasons, that is
not an option either. So, I catch the highlights online, go to the rink when I
can, and try to make sure that taking the kids to my parents house to visit
just happens to line up with a game night.

~~~
fredleblanc
My bad team that's not near me are the Avs, so I hate you out of necessity.
I'm sure you understand. :)

Not that it's a great replacement, but I've really grown attached to listening
to the audio-only streams through the NHL app. I'm pretty sure those aren't
blacked out anywhere, and radio is still very entertaining. I especially love
the crew in Ottawa and the crazy old man in Pittsburgh.

Of course, there's the whole weird, questionable business model world of
hockeystreams.com -- which puts really high quality streams of all sorta of
hockey games up live (not just NHL, but I believe AHL and others too),
probably proxied in from other places that don't have all of the silly
restrictions. Their site isn't much right now, they limit subscriptions and
during the season it's all "use" mode and no "sell."

~~~
untothebreach
Yea, I always seem to miss the "sign up" window at hockeystreams. I'll have to
check out the audio stream, I hadn't heard about that, and I listen to a whole
bunch of podcasts so I'm no stranger to audio-only entertainment.

Also, I totally understand the hate from an Avs fan, and can only say,
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
fredleblanc
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ indeed! The outdoor game is gonna be great.

------
howeyc
Doubtful. ESPN is not synonomous with Sports. People may be becoming aware of
the amount of their cable bill being sent to ESPN, but there are two problems
blocking change. 1) They (the cable subscriber) can't do shit about it, they
either accept the whole packege or not. 2) Why would the cable companies go
for it anyway, I'm sure they know they can get more by forcing HGTV lovers to
pay for ESPN, and ESPN lovers forced to pay for HGTV.

Also, let's say this author is right, ESPN dies a slow death. How does that
stop sports? ESPN doesn't have much (of the main sports) on it anyway. Sports
games are on other networks. NFL - CBS,FOX. MLB - FOX,TBS. Soccer - NBC. NHL -
NBC.

I'm sure the sports that are on ESPN can find an home elsewhere. I'm not sure
the dog shows are raking in huge TV money from ESPN that some PETS CHANNEL
can't cover.

~~~
myNXTact
It seems to me that the "death of ESPN" is more evidence of the death of the
cable TV model than the death of sports.

~~~
VLM
The other death of sports issue was very carefully not mentioned in the
article... look at the median age of baseball fans over the past decades. Its
literally a dying sport, as in the fans are aging and dying and not being
replaced. Obviously not an issue for some of the other sports. However being a
sports nerd in the sitcom stereotype sense is definitely a boomer and pre-
boomer generational thing, not so much with younger people, and old people
have a way of dying off.

The biggest mistake the article made was conflating sport related spending
with the housing bubble. The housing bubble blew because the last entrants
into the ponzi were tapped out. The cost of sports is microscopic in
comparison and very few people give up cable because they're completely and
utterly tapped out. They just spend the $100 on something else. Probably a
smartphone and some subscription services. Certainly the last entrant into the
ponzi of paying a billion bucks for a team on the assumption you'll sell to a
greater fool at two billion has not been reached, nor has the very last new
sports fan been born yet.

The biggest oversight in articles of this type is no one wants to discuss
bundling. The kind of business that forces all video subscribers to pay $30/mo
for sports even if they're not sports fans, could, with just a couple clicks
on a keyboard, change the bundle so all the cablemodem subscribers pay the
same $30 extra for their cablemodem, but now it comes with free ESPN video or
some kind of web access deal. There are, after all, only a handful of monopoly
providers. So either pay $30 for ESPN, or disconnect yourself from the
internet.

Trying to avoid paying for sports is like trying to avoid paying for organized
crime. Or disorganized crime, for that matter. Unfortunately you can either
pay up, or leave the geography and culture entirely. The government and
corporations certainly are not going to help us because they are the organized
crime in this analogy.

~~~
bcoates
ESPN already tried this when the writing was on the wall almost a decade ago.
ESPN360/ESPN3/WatchESPN/whatever they call it now can only be watched if your
ISP pays ESPN royalties for every subscriber on a take it or leave it basis.
Time Warner called their bluff and only bundles it with your connection if you
also buy basic cable.

You still "pay for ESPN" in the sense that TWC prices low-end internet-only
packages to be uncompetitive with cable+internet bundles, but if you opt for
the internet-only package TWC keeps the money. This works out great for TWC
but not so much for ESPN or sports fans used to subsidy.

------
spo81rty
I never have understood why we pay for cable channels to then watch ads on
them. They should be able to make some decent money just on the ads.

~~~
mikegioia
Not only that, but have you ever counted the commercial minutes for an NFL
game? I had to turn the game off mid-way through because I couldn't take it
anymore. Something like 60-70% of the 3.5 hours are spent on commercials.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
NFL is just awful. From the commercials as you mention to making it all video
game-like with the wooshes and whoops and graphics all over the screen. I just
can't watch it.

The commercials that are aired during sporting events make me feel like my IQ
drops 30 points just watching them.

No, can't do it. No NFL for me.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
There's also the issue of CTE, which made me stop watching any football at any
level.

------
overgard
A couple of things that are misleading here:

1) Most of the high profile ESPN personalities departing had little to do with
finances. Some of it was internal feuding (ie, the Bill Simmons departure),
some of it was firing loose cannons for boorish statements that don't fly in
our hyper-PC culture, and some of it was people leaving for more money from
competitors. As others have noted, for a company the size of ESPN the salaries
of a few high profile personalities are mostly negligible.

2) Same thing with the Grantland shutdown -- the site was never realistically
expected to be a money maker, it was essentially shut down because the
departure of Simmons made the site's future unclear, and ESPN decided to get
out of the pop culture business and fold the sports writing back into their
main site.

3) A lot of ESPN's cutbacks are because they (foolishly) forecast their
finances on the assumption that subscriptions would continue to grow. That
doesn't mean the well has dried up, it just means that they've been a bit
reckless the past few years.

4) I think this is excluding that a lot of sports are consumed on the free
broadcast stations (CBS, NBC, FOX, etc.). Even with cable folding, those
networks are still going to be paying billions for TV rights.

That said I agree with the overall gist of the argument that valuations are
going to drop when the cable money starts drying out. I just don't think it's
going to be a catastrophic crash or something; I doubt the average consumer
will even notice.

------
SixSigma
In Other News

Discovery expects Eurosport app to reach one million subs in two years

Discovery Communications Chief Executive David Zaslav said he expects its
Eurosport Group's player app to reach one million subscribers in two years and
that it will bring an additional $100 million in revenue.

"It's a big initiative," he said about the Eurosport app.

Discovery took a controlling ownership position in the European sports
broadcaster last year. The app currently counts about 200,000 subscribers.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-discovery-eurosport-
idUSKB...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-discovery-eurosport-
idUSKBN0MR27S20150331)

Disclosure: I have been a subscriber since 2012, it costs about $5 a month. It
is the only "tv" I watch. You get 2 regular sports channels. At the moment it
is mostly Winter Sports: Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, Ski-jumping etc. With
Snooker & Tennis. Summer is two wheeled action: Tour de France, World
Superbikes plus World Touring Cars, Tennis, and a whole host of sports you
can't get anywhere else.

We even had minority sports like American Monday Night Football ;)

[http://www.eurosportplayer.co.uk/tvschedule-
month.shtml](http://www.eurosportplayer.co.uk/tvschedule-month.shtml)

~~~
Practicality
Sorry, Eurosport Player is not available in this country.

:(

------
webXL
Man, I feel bad for all the people subsidizing my college football addiction
over the years. Well, athletic departments' addiction to $$$ that is. But I
never had to worry about not seeing a game live from my very own couch. It was
very easy for me to justify $70/mo from September to January (until I found
out I could get Sling for $25/mo). I never asked for 40 bowl games though.
Hopefully all of those no-name bowls disappear. College sports was still
exciting before they came along.

------
gz5
The TV bubble has popped. For sports and all entertainment. But to use that
evidence that all of "sports" is about to pop is a stretch.

I suspect we will see much more direct interaction with teams & athletes, off-
season live events, AR & gaming tie-ins, etc. We will move from passive,
centralized TV consumption to more distributed, interactive interaction.

Sports, as entertainment, is still very healthy, even if the mediums and
peripherals are changing.

~~~
bryanlarsen
To replace the loss of the current $30-$40 per month from casual fans would
require hundreds per month from hard core fans. I don't think that's going to
fly.

------
spo81rty
I also like the model of paying for the sports we want. I don't mind paying
$50 a year to watch all MLS games and I can watch them on any device.

~~~
alistairSH
Agreed. The only sport I watch with regularity is professional cycling. Aside
from the Tour, there was little to no coverage on any cable network (in the
US).

So I cancelled cable TV, saved $100/month. Put some of that money into
Netflix. And pay for streaming coverage of cycling events as-needed.

------
lordnacho
One interesting comparison I didn't see in there was tube porn sites.

You can get the highlights of pretty much any event with a simple search, so
why pay to watch the whole thing? Sure, now and again a Champions League match
could be good, but if people are like me, they'll mostly just have a look at
the highlights. And I'm guessing there's a lot more marginal consumers than
massive fans.

------
saturdaysaint
I'm interested to see if sports' cultural cache experiences more of a
perceptible fall. For a long time, sports fandom provided a uniquely immersive
experience - a world of interesting play styles, strategies, stats, and
exciting shared experiences in the big games.

My sense is that the hardcore fans are still there, but a lot of casual
followers are slowly being peeled away into other immersive experiences - well
written TV, social media communities, deeper and deeper gameplay experiences.
Additionally, gathering a bunch of people into a room to watch something isn't
as much of a draw with the constant connectivity of smartphones. My girlfriend
is a

When you add the dinosaur economic model controlling the medium and the rising
sensitivity to the brain damage that football causes, I wouldn't be too
surprised to see a more perceptible downturn.

------
panglott
"When ESPN was adding subscribers, the $6.50 per-month-per-subscriber it
charges to every cable operator meant $78 of additional annual profit for each
new subscriber. This is a wonderful thing until a network starts losing
customers, at which point all the revenue from every lost subscriber is
chopped right out of that same network’s net profits."

This sounds like a "collapse of complex societies" in which the Roman Empire
can expand as long as there are increasing returns to complexification, but
collapses when the yields of complexification plateau and there is instead
declining marginal productivity. [http://www.historytoday.com/christopher-
chippindale/collapse...](http://www.historytoday.com/christopher-
chippindale/collapse-complex-societies)

------
drpgq
Canada is switching to a la carte pricing for cable channels soon. Personally
I'm planning on keeping a fair number of the sports channels and ditching a
lot of the cruft that has built up over the years on the typical Canadian
bundle.

------
jbiddy
Much of that article didn't make sense, but there was a nugget of truth in
there. Cable is losing subscribers, but that isn't a unique problem to ESPN.

I don't think the sportstainment industry will see a bursting of the bubble,
so to speak. I do think instead, people who consume sports and sportstainment
will simply pay more to make up for the suckers that were pitching in without
ever realizing it.

There are sports fans out there that are cable-cutters, but not as many as you
would think. Sooner or later, sooner if they have any sense, ESPN will move to
the HBO Now type of model. That will bring many of them back.

------
mark_l_watson
Hopefully not too far off topic: I really enjoy live sports but find sports on
TV to be fairly boring. I have had more fun watching local high school teams
play that watching 'big games' on TV.

And, I really resent the 'ESPN tax' on cable bills, although now it is
sometimes possible to unbundle that.

------
nogridbag
I left this page open overnight on thedailybest.com and woke up in morning
with "FirefoxPatch.exe" attempting to download (clean install of W10). Will
not visit this site again.

------
petercooper
Here in the UK, sports channels are always an optional (and quite expensive)
extra - it seems to work. Same with movie channels.

~~~
robk
Yeah but in the UK consumers are used to public viewing in pubs. The USA has a
far less developed sports bar market.

~~~
mark-r
That's probably changing. The falling price of TVs means any bar that wants
can have them wall-to-wall. It's getting hard to escape them.

------
jmnicolas
Here is my prediction for 2016 : the bubble of bubbles is about to pop !

------
ricksplat
Go Piggers!!!

------
Rugoretto
This is the same publication that "found" bitcoin's Satoshi a while ago. I'll
hold off believing this until some other news organizations start reporting
this. Meanwhile I'll be tuning in to watch the Golden State warriors tonight.

------
saiya-jin
i might be a very odd ball, but i find it strange that in 21st century, people
in the west pay relatively huge amounts for passively watching sports while
sitting on the couch (to make picture complete, imagine some junk food lying
just in front of them).

popular sports became filthy moral dump where elite tries to outsmart doctors
in doping tests, cares primarily about PR and chasing sponsors, and the sport
itself sits somewhere out there, like a necessary, but not that important part
if it all. honest, pure sportsman doesn't stand a chance in such a crowd.

I choose not to support these "sports" anyway, ignore them and couldn't be
happier. I focus on activities where athletes are doing it without massive
cash incentives, because they love it.

And since my sports include climbing, alpinism, ski touring etc. which at any
point hold small risk of major injury or death, fear is semi-constant part of
whole experience and overcoming your fear is necessary for any success at
all... these sports discussed look very "meh" compared to it.

Some real-people example - this Lebron James guy mentioned here today vs say
Ueli Steck, or Alex Honnold.

~~~
anoonmoose
This was posted on HN a while back:

[https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/cultivated-disinterest-in-
prof...](https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/cultivated-disinterest-in-professional-
sports)

I'm a nerd and I'm not big into the NBA (although I am into other sports) and
I think if you can't figure out what is impressive about Lebron James then I
think you're maybe not really trying to.

~~~
talmand
I don't see the claim that Lebron James is not impressive, but I have no
problem with imagining someone having little idea of who he is. Besides, he's
nothing compared to Michael Jordan and if you don't know about him then you're
just not alive.

~~~
fluxquanta
>Besides, he's nothing compared to Michael Jordan

He's about to be. He just signed a lifetime deal with Nike[0] which will
undoubtedly make him a billionaire, in a similar vein to what Jordan did with
the "Air Jordan" brand.

[0] [http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2596728-lebron-james-
nike...](http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2596728-lebron-james-nike-agree-
on-lifetime-contract-details-comments-reaction)

~~~
talmand
Nah, not good enough.

