Insider Sports Marketing weighs in on Lebron Decision

By JOHN McCANN

The truth of the matter is LeBron James doesn't look anywhere near as good as Denzel Washington.

But Denzel couldn't have had his people call ESPN and gotten his handsome face on TV for an hour to tell his business to the world.

Yet that's the way it is in the NBA monarchy, where King James sits on the throne. (His throne won't rust or rot or anything from all that beach water and sand at South Beach, will it?)

But should His Majesty be viewed as, well, Drama King James?

You mean to tell me it takes a whole hour for a ballplayer to announce where he has next?

Michael Jordan back in the day came out of retirement with a statement that said, "I'm back." And that was it.

Kevin Durant the other day sent out a sweet tweet on his Twitter page announcing he'd re-upped with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

And that was it.

Then came King James last night with his big production that had to have made filmmaker and ultra-New York Knicks fan Spike Lee reconsider the way he goes about funding his documentaries.

What? Oh, did I watch "The Decision"? Yeah, I watched it -- uh, but I had my eyes closed. (Well, y'all let Bill Clinton get away with that type of excuse when he claimed he didn't inhale that reefer.)

And you watched the ESPN special, too. If you didn't, then you were just protesting to try to prove a point. But you wanted to watch. Don't lie.

Durham lawyer Ralph Frasier doesn't represent King James. But if he were the brother's adviser, he would've approved the move Bron-Bron made last night in the gym at that Boys Girls Club in Greenwich, Conn.

"It's an excellent gesture," said Frasier, talking about James stipulating that proceeds from sponsorships of his ESPN telecast benefit Boys Girls Clubs of America.

"Sometimes it takes a catalyst like a LeBron or a Denzel to inspire others to give," said Frasier, a board member of the local John Avery Boys Girls Club.

Denzel Washington is a longtime champion of Boys Girls Clubs of America. And the little fundraiser King James orchestrated was nice enough. It gives me a reason to tell you to visit www.johnavery.org and see how you can help the local branch, see how you can get your kids or somebody else's kids to get in on the $10-a-year memberships.

But you have to wonder whether King James' 60-minute reality TV show wherein he kicked Cleveland to the curb was bad branding for a cat who wants to become the first billionaire ballplayer?

"I don't think it is necessarily 'bad branding'," said Chip Hutchinson, founder and president of Insider Sports Marketing in Durham. "But I do question whether or not it has become 'bigger than the game.'"

"I love it! I absolutely love it," Jeff Jones said about James' big production.

Jones, partner and president of McKinney advertising agency in Durham, said James is a modern-day figure using modern-day tools - TV, Twitter, texting, you name it -- to build his brand.

"What he says in front of the camera and the way he behaves from here forward will determine if this was smart marketing or bad branding," Jones said before "The Decision."

Now, with respect to King James' brand, here's a guy who sent out his initial Twitter tweet and picked up 100,000 followers, Jones said.

In other words, His Majesty knows exactly what he's doing.

See the original story in The Herald Sun here.