LeBron James is back at the center of a familiar kind of scramble. Five cities are openly vying for him as he enters his 23rd NBA season, and the chase has quickly become about more than basketball. The Bay Area, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Miami and Cleveland are all in the mix because James has already shown he can move money as well as standings.
That is why the search around the Mind The Game Podcast has picked up now. At 41, James is still a force enough to make markets pay attention, and the past offers a simple reason: when he arrives, business tends to rise around him. The American Enterprise Institute described his effect on nearby economies as a statistically and economically significant positive effect, and its 2018 research found a 13% boost to restaurants and similar establishments within a mile of his home stadium, along with a 23.5% jump in employment at those places.
The money trail is easy to follow in the places he has already been. Cleveland's Cavaliers were valued at $222 million in 2003 before drafting James, then climbed to a peak of $477 million in 2009 during his tenure before falling nearly 25% to $355 million when he left. In Miami, the Heat's revenue rose from $188 million to $364 million after the 2010 season, a 112% increase. In Los Angeles, James brought over $500 million in revenue over his five-year contract and helped lift the Lakers' valuation from $3.7 billion to $10 billion.
But the boost is real without being the whole story. The same period that made James into a sports economy engine also saw NBA values rise because of richer national television contracts, which means some of the growth around him would have happened anyway. Even so, Cleveland saw the largest impact from his superstardom, and that is the number that explains why five cities are now competing for a player who has spent nearly a quarter-century turning his next move into a public event.
That leaves the obvious unanswered part: James has not chosen yet. The Bay Area, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Miami and Cleveland are waiting on the same decision, and whichever city gets him will be betting that the basketball is only the start of the return.
