Now I'm really beginning to wonder if all of the intense media scrutiny is now perpetuating anti-social behavior from Lebron. Take a look at this video:
I can say from personal experiance of having done many camps with NBA players that what Lebron did here is generally considered to be bad form. Most of the time the players LET the kids win intentionally as a good camp story and certainly don't resort to trucking a child to win a game of knockout. Naturally media outlets picked up on this and have been reporting it already. What was likely Lebron trying to make sure he wasn't beaten by a child and turned into bad PR has now turned into a story about him beating a child which is even worse PR.
Apparently one often finds his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it. (Thanks Master Oogway!)
With polls now coming out left and right on the popularity of Lebron James this article on Yahoo Sports actually brought an interesting question to the forefront of my mind.
The article mentions the fact that ESPN, the media company that has profited the most from Lebron's fall from grace also profited from and was in essence the orchestrator of the mechanism of his downfall. That being his "The Decision" show. It was aired on ESPN networks with their blessing and endorsement. Meanwhile Lebron has taken all of the fall for the show while ESPN as a media company has not. They have essentially helped create the news that they also cover and put themselves in a win/win situation profiting both from Lebron's rise and from his demise. This brings into question many questions about the role of media and the impartiality of news organizations as well as the ethical responsibilities they have. Infotainment News such as on Fox News and MSNBC have also blurred this line by trying to separate what they call "hard news" programs from opinion programs and I'd imagine ESPN would put forth a similar argument in respect to "The Decision". However is that really a shield from criticism when the news organization itself is profiteering by selling this program to Lebron as a way of raising money for youth programs? Compartmentalizing business is not a legal defense for gangs and organized crime so I'm not sure why it should be for media companies. All the while Lebron's popularity ratings are as low as ever while ESPN's ratings (and thus advertising revenues) have never been higher.
On the actual substance of the poll it is astonishing. Lebron James, likely because of his refusal to apologize is lower in popularity then Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods is a man with many parallels to Lebron James except for the fact that he actually did bad things in his personal life whereas Lebron made a bad business move. The major difference is that Tiger Woods has become contrite and exhibited humbleness and humility while Lebron James acts in press conferences as if he has never done anything even the slightest bit inappropriate. The media has now moved on to a new story in their portrayal of Tiger as a fallen hero looking for redemption. Despite the fact that what he did was worse he gets far better treatment from virtually all media outlets. I guess the moral of the story as it relates to media exposure is that doing bad things and apologizing is better in the eyes of people then saying bad things and not apologizing.
Lebron's marketability seems to take a hit whenever the media begin a new round of assaults on his character and ability to play. Again they usually coincide with some machination of his own creation but this could start to hit more then his ego as marketability numbers like these will have a cascade effect on his ability to get endorsements and the value of those endorsements. What exactly has happened between now and a month ago? The Miami Heat lost game 6 of the NBA Finals. Were this any other player they would not have the same magnitude and intensity of media exposure to the point of saturation. In fact one could probably make a reasonable argument that without this exposure his marketability would not have taken much of a hit at all.
Look at other NBA Players who have not won championships or lost in the Finals. Did Dirk Nowitzki's stock drop after losing to the Heat in 2006? No. Did Karl Malone's or Charles Barkley's? No. The story that Lebron himself started with his "The Decision" television broadcast has become a self perpetuating media monster that he or we will likely be unable to stem for quite some time.
Moreover other NBA players have actually said far worse things by a large margin and have not become the distinct focus of people's ire. Back in the mid 80's Isiah Thomas told new reporters that the only reason people said Larry Bird was the greatest was because he was white and that if he was black he would be "just another good guy", Isiah never got even close to the level of vitriol tossed at him because of that statement because shortly thereafter he appeared at a press conference with Larry Bird profusely apologizing
The thing is Lebron refuses to do that. Shortly after losing in the NBA Finals Lebron also went into a press conference. But rather then being contrite he launched a ridiculously condescending tirade in which he referred to other people's personal problems.
.You can tell he is definitely feeling the pressure of the media scrutiny and one would be hard pressed to make an argument that it is not driving anti-social behavior in him at this point. It would seem as if he believes he just needs to tough it out until he finally wins a championship at which point the media will lay off of him and hail him as a hero. At least that's the story he seems to have crafted in his own mind. Only time will tell, but so far the hate Lebron train is big money for media outlets.
In another example of how the media functions as the framers of debate and often the narrator of the story they have picked up on the one year anniversary of "The Decision", which occurred yesterday, en masse. CBS Sports has actually released a Decision Remix video:
Now that the Miami Heat lost in the NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks the tone has switch from derision to levity. Lebron James is no longer being framed as a villain to be reviled. But as a precautionary comedic example in order to continue the narrative that the major sports media companies wish to perpetuate. This however is not simply because they have an anti-Lebron agenda or bias. Even in one way mediums such as television broadcasting there exists asynchronous communication between the reporters and the viewers. The reporters know there is a large anti-Lebron sentiment throughout the rest of the country so they are trying to function as populists and feed him to the masses in some respects.
In another example of how the media functions as the framers of debate and often the narrator of the story they have picked up on the one year anniversary of "The Decision", which occurred yesterday, en masse. CBS Sports has actually released a Decision Remix video:
Now that the Miami Heat lost in the NBA Finals to the Dallas Mavericks the tone has switch from derision to levity. Lebron James is no longer being framed as a villain to be reviled. But as a precautionary comedic example in order to continue the narrative that the major sports media companies wish to perpetuate. This however is not simply because they have an anti-Lebron agenda or bias. Even in one way mediums such as television broadcasting there exists asynchronous communication between the reporters and the viewers. The reporters know there is a large anti-Lebron sentiment throughout the rest of the country so they are trying to function as populists and feed him to the masses in some respects.
Lebron James is currently one of the most hated sports figures of the modern era. He is in many respects a paraiah on the same grounds as Barry Bonds. A large part of this is due to his own selfish and arrogant actions, and there have been plenty of those. However Michael Jordan, one of the most celebrated athletes in the history of basketball was also extremely arrogant. Locker room reports of Michael punching and verbally dressing down other players and making outrageous demands never permeated the media or tarnished his legacy. Why is this so? Because the media loves to tell a good story and Michael, unlike Lebron was a master at giving the media a digestible story for the American public. Lets examine the original "Big 3" which are considered to be Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. Ask any basketball enthusiast and they can tell you these three players basic stories. Michael Jordan was a kid nobody believed in, he was cut from his high school basketball team and even after winning the NCAA championship at North Carolina was passed over as the #1 pick in the NBA draft in favor of Sam Bowie because he just didn't have what it took to beat the Lakers/Pistons/Celtics. People doubted him all his life. He went to the Bulls and won three straight championships. Then his father died in a bizarre unexpected fashion and he took a leave of absence. The doubt came back once again. Jordan could never come back and return to his greatness. Two years later Jordan was back and proceeded to win three more championships before retiring. It's a story made for TV and media people ate it up because they knew we the people would eat it up so the media ignored other less flattering images which did not fit the narrative.
Moving on to Larry and Magic. They played each other in the title game of the NCAA Tournament. Every year it was a constant debate over who was better. It was a bitter rivalry that resulted in fights, riots. You could not find two more perfectly different people from the media's perspective. Larry Bird was a white "Hick from French Lick" that came from a poor working class white family in Indiana. Magic Johnson was the west coast style and flair representative of the "African American" style of basketball. It again was a perfect story for the country at the time and especially the media. Magic would win a championship, then Bird would come back and beat him next time and on and on. It was like Clash of the Titans.
Coming back to Lebron. What is his story? Largely one of personal triumph which has yielded no championships or moments of triumph for his teams. He's a kid that was proclaimed the next great one at the age of 16. He was crowned King James and the Chosen One. And yet 8 seasons into his NBA career he has failed to win a championship. Something all of the Big 3 had done by then. So now the media has turned to the only story they feel will sell papers. And that's that Lebron is a spoiled child who was given everything and made nothing of it. As I started off saying he has brought a lot of this upon himself by hiring childhood friends as his PR people who do not know what they are doing. However in many respects Lebron is doing many of the same things the Big 3 did but because he has failed to fit what the media framed as the expectations of him these personal failures are now magnified and scrutinized in a way the media would never have done for the other legends of the game.
