Donald Dell: ‘Ignore the money, LeBron’

Donald Dell, one of the most respected figures in the sports industry and the former agent of basketball legend Michael Jordan, has urged LeBron James to ignore the money when deciding where his NBA future lies.

 
As the most high-profile NBA free agency period in recent history prepares to enter its climax, James, the league’s standout star and global basketball icon, is set to announce his chosen franchise during a one-off broadcast on ESPN on Thursday night.

“I think he’s got to look to see where he can go to win,” said Dell, in an exclusive interview with SportsPro. “Winning will be his number one goal and money will be secondary, because he’s making a ton of money now anyway. I don’t mean this to sound casual but whether he’s making US$20 million a year or US$22 million a year or US$24 million a year, I don’t think will matter as much to LeBron as winning the championship.”

Over the last few weeks, speculation has grown frenzied, with many esteemed sports marketers suggesting a move to one of the New York franchises, either the Knicks or the Nets, would make James a billionaire. Now, with an announcement likely this evening, the general ‘informed’ opinion has the favourites to secure his signature as the Miami Heat and his current team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“He’s going to sell product in a lot of cities,” said Dell. “Nike signed him to a new deal and they did not stipulate that he had to go to New York or Chicago. He could be in San Antonio, which is not a great market, and still sell product. My advice to LeBron would be, you’re a very dominant guy; go where you think you’re going to fit in with the players.”
 
Dell, a former US Davis Cup team tennis captain, is one of the founding fathers of the sports business industry. Having founded his sports management company, ProServ, in 1970, Dell went on to represent a host of global sports stars including Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Yannick Noah, Stan Smith, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Andy Roddick. He has negotiated some of the most famous sports endorsement contracts in history and has become known as a master dealmaker.

In an exclusive interview with SportsPro, to be published in the August edition of the magazine, Dell gave his thoughts on the current state of the global sports market and revealed the advice he would offer a young sports star breaking through today.

“There’s a new thing out there called ESPN,” says Dell. “ESPN goes to over 100 million homes; they have four channels; they’re 24/7 sports news and that’s all they are. So if you’re a young star coming out and you’re 18 or 19 years old, you have to really be careful about driving drunk or, and I always tell this to a young guy, if you’re in a bar and a woman comes over and you buy her a drink and she’s very aggressive with you and as she leaves you pat her on the ass or you kiss her and she doesn’t like it or you do something, you’re going to be on ESPN in a couple of hours and it’s going to be nationwide and whether it’s true or false it’s mostly going to be controversial, because that’s what they put up there. And controversial hurts you, because your brand is your name. I think cable television has really changed the existence of young sports stars, much in the same way as cable news has changed the face of politics.

“It’s all ‘breaking news’ and it’s all magnified tenfold over. So my advice would be protect your name and protect whose around you and what you’re doing, because whatever you do becomes public instantaneously and most controversial stuff is not favourable.”