LeBron James stands alone as the most complex superstar of the modern sports era. Over the course of his 12-year career, he has played about every role imaginable both on and off the court. Arguably the most versatile player in the history of basketball, King James is just as likely to play the point as he is to bang it up down low at the five spot.
Off the court, LeBron has been cast in every role from the chosen one—arriving at only 18 years of age to save his hometown of Cleveland from their constant sports suffering—to treacherous deserter—abandoning his blue collar city for the flash and flare of South Beach—to dark knight—returning home a few years later, matured, inspired, and poised to right his wrongs and lead his city to the Promised Land at last. He some how manages to be everything at once: hero to some and villain to others, a choke one moment and clutch the next, coward for leaving and crusader in return. The King has made his virtuosity even more apparent this off-season with his most recent business ventures.
Read about all the latest sports digital news with the SportTechie newsletter.
Over the course of the past year, some of the biggest athletes in sports have clashed with some of the most high profile members of the media, sparking a public discussion of athlete’s distrust (and occasional disdain) of reporters. Kevin Durant waged a war of words with well-respected journalist, Stephen A. Smith, over his reports regarding Durant’s free agency drama. Teammate and superstar in his own right, Russell Westbrook, is famous for his malice towards post game questioning with a few notorious tantrums and quotables of his own. The two, however, pail in comparison to Seahawks’ running back, Marshawn Lynch’s, legendary feud with the media, offering curt responses and, often times, refusing to speak to the press entirely.
These three are just the tip of the iceberg. Players in general are suspicious of the media, and –sometimes—with good reason. Looking to avoid drama in the headlines, many franchises across the sports world are beginning to mandate media training for young and developing players in order to avoid any verbal blunders that could cause unnecessary distractions in the locker room.
So, in the wake of a turbulent year in athlete-media relations, developers have been looking to create a platform for players to interact with fans without media paranoia. Derek Jeter, Yankee legend and sports hero to all (forgive my bias), led the charge at the close of his farewell season in 2014 with the reveal of his site, the Player’s Tribune. The Tribune is a website that allows players a medium to tell their own unique stories themselves.
At first, the site was met with doubts. “These are professional athletes, not sports writers,” and “What do sports stars know about story telling?” were typical critiques of the nascent platform; however, naysayers had no choice but to eat their words last week when Kobe Bryant made his highly-speculated retirement announcement on the Tribune and nearly crashed the entire site. Clearly fans are hungry for the voices of their favorite athletes, and LeBron and his camp took notice.
James and his team also looked to cut out the middleman and create a platform for athletes to communicate directly with their fans without fear of misinterpretation or confusion. The project is called UNINTERRUPTED.
The site provides athletes with a channel to communicate unfiltered, untainted information and commentary on their careers, personal lives, and more with their fans without fear of being misreported or taken out of context. Along with offering athletes a voice of their own in the press, Uninterrupted also plans to create original content like mini-series, documentaries, and more, bringing fans even closer to the lives of their favorite superstars.
The site—currently launched on Turner Sports’ Bleacher Report, has gotten off to an auspicious start, establishing partnerships with some of the hottest athletes in the world right now. NFL superstars Rob Gronkowski and Victor Cruz both used the platform to update fans on their major injury status. Uninterrupted has also featured regular updates from Odell Beckham Jr., Draymond Green, and Ronda Rousey, three of the most talked about athletes in sports at the moment, all providing comments and updates for their fans through the site. Green and LeBron, himself, managed to generate a lot of positive attention for the platform a few weeks ago with their public wager over the Michigan State v. Ohio State Big 10 matchup.
Along with personal posts directly from athletes, Uninterrupted has also promised more in-depth coverage of the lives of your favorite players in the form of mini-series and documentaries. LeBron and his team have given Uninterrupted users a taste of what such coverage will be like with their mini-series “Strive For Greatness”, a five part series following James through the tireless process of training for yet another championship campaign. Each of the five episodes is shot with a 360-degree camera intended for viewing on a Virtual Reality device, but also watchable through Facebook’s 360-degree video experience, allowing viewers to drag the frame from side to side, giving them an all-encompassing look at LeBron’s workouts. James and his team, long time partners with Samsung, designed the series to be experienced through the company’s latest release, the Samsung Gear VR, a virtual reality headset available for only $99.
If exclusive content from some of the most popular sports figures on the planet wasn’t enough for you to buy into LeBron’s vision, backing from some of the most powerful forces in the world of broadcasting should do the trick. Warner Bros. Entertainment and Turner Sports recently invested $15.8 million dollars in support to the Uninterrupted platform. With titans of the industry like Warner Bros. and Turner on his side, the sky seems to be the limit for LeBron and the rest of his Uninterrupted camp.
You can say what you want about King James. Critique his game, knock his style, dissect his every move, and analyze each twitch and change of facial expression, but one thing is for certain: LeBron James is great. No matter what role you decide to cast him in. He was a great hero in Cleveland. He was a great villain in Miami. He’s even managed to play a great Prodigal Son in the return to his hometown this past year. In this case—despite most people’s expectations— he is a great promoter, creator, and investor in the world of technology.