4
4xchampncountin
Guest
I don't know how many of you know much about this story, but LeBron James is a phenominal high school basketball player. He worked out at a private camp with Michael Jordan (at Michael's personal invitation) before his JUNIOR year. Several NBA scouts say if he came out after his junior year he would have been the top pick in the NBA draft. Michael Jordan himself is courting him for Nike.
Now here comes the parts where I think he is being exploited. All of his high school "home" games have been moved to the University of Akron's gym to sell more tickets. His games are being sold Pay-Per-View by the local cable company. The Akron Beacon Journal is soliciting national media people with an offer to send them their local coverage (digitally) of LeBron's games for a small fee of $8.95 per month. There are a dang lot of people making a whole lot of money off of this kid and since he is still a senior in High School, he isn't getting a dime out of it. Granted, he is very likely to make a truckload of money as soon as he graduates. Nike, Reebok and others are said to be ready to offer him over $10 million just to sign a shoe deal with them before he even plays his first NBA game. But, something just seems really wrong with this on some level. Of course, I could see a very dangerous precedent being set by allowing a high school player to get paid.
Now here comes the parts where I think he is being exploited. All of his high school "home" games have been moved to the University of Akron's gym to sell more tickets. His games are being sold Pay-Per-View by the local cable company. The Akron Beacon Journal is soliciting national media people with an offer to send them their local coverage (digitally) of LeBron's games for a small fee of $8.95 per month. There are a dang lot of people making a whole lot of money off of this kid and since he is still a senior in High School, he isn't getting a dime out of it. Granted, he is very likely to make a truckload of money as soon as he graduates. Nike, Reebok and others are said to be ready to offer him over $10 million just to sign a shoe deal with them before he even plays his first NBA game. But, something just seems really wrong with this on some level. Of course, I could see a very dangerous precedent being set by allowing a high school player to get paid.