LeBron James is the best basketball player on planet, the biggest and most recognizable name in the game right now. His face is everywhere as the league uses him to promote the playoffs, Nike uses him to help sell shoes, McDonald’s uses him to sell food a professional athlete shouldn’t eat, Beats uses him to sell headphones and on down the list. It’s not quite oversaturation, but as we move toward the Finals expect the LeBron screen time to ramp up.
Now LeBron is also an app.
You’ve probably seen the ads during the playoffs. LeBron has a partnership with Samsung and as part of that they created an app for him — only available on Samsung devices. It has, according to the press release, exclusive “photos and videos of his workouts, daily life as an athlete including his routine for getting ready for games, post-game remarks and more.” There are also sections on his style outside the playoffs, some LeBron history (his “journey”) and more.
Business wise, I get why this exists. In fact, I bet we start to see other elite athletes go this route, with varying degrees of success.
Personally, I’m not sure why anyone outside a hardcore Heat/LeBron fan would want it. And even then I don’t get it. If he were releasing interesting insights and comments through it that would be one thing, but you know that everything posted there will be scrubbed clean and polished up by a PR/marketing team before you ever see it.
It will have all the reality and truth of a Disney nature movie.
But LeBron is an app and you can download it… if you’re on his sponsor’s platform.