NBA’s Superstar May Become a Knick
Rumors have surfaced this week that make it seem more possible that LeBron James will sign with New York|the Knicks|the New York Knicks following this year.
When LeBron turns into a free agent in the summer of 2010, the Cleveland Cavaliers will remain in the top position to extend him. This is a product of the Larry Bird rule, which lets a franchise to go over the salary limit in order to retain their own free representative.
The New York Knicks will give LeBron a max agreement, although they won’t have the skill to offer LeBron as a lot as Cleveland. So they became resourceful in the giant city and came up with a way to bypass that blasted salary cap.
The gossip is that the Knicks won’t only offer James a max agreement, but furthermore his very own cable television network. As you may well know, the Knicks are owned by Cablevision, a cable television network.
LeBron might earn income from the sponsors on his cable channel. According to basketball regulations, the franchise would not be allowed to set up these advertisements/advertisers for LeBron; he would be required to handle that himself. Although I think we would all acknowledge that James has enough acquaintances in the corporate world to make it happen.
Speculation is that the channel would show reruns of Knicks games (whose rights belong to Cablevision), as well as other programming regarding LeBron, the Knicks, as well as the league. Some are even predicting that Nike might want to be involved and create their own television series.
The large question is whether the league would consent to this. It seems to be fully within league regulations. The cable television network would be seen as having a peripheral edge of playing in NY, similar to many other advertising benefits that come from playing in a certain city. The income might be perceived as non-basketball associated revenue.
This is a newborn and interesting twist in the LeBron-to-be-a-free agent chronicle. The broad consensus is that Cleveland is winning the race. Perhaps that’s starting to change?