Have you noticed that a couple of sports personalities can see no right in LeBron James?
It wasn’t until this summer that LeBron James became a different public figure. It took one weekend for James to go to his son Bronny’s basketball tournament to support and spend some quality father/son time together. Nothing wrong here right? James is usually busy from October to June, might as well get that time in.
By the end of the weekend, it turned into one of the biggest sports debates on social media and into one of the worst sports takes of all time by Jason Whitlock.
Today’s Before We Go: LeBron should take the advice he gave his mother… sit yo ass down. @WhitlockJason pic.twitter.com/77DDCrD9ql
— Speak (@SpeakOnFS1) July 29, 2019
Jason Whitlock’s comparisons were bad, really bad. But pay attention to the numbers under the clip shown. Notice the likes. Notice the blue captions talking about the video. That’s the business that comes with LeBron James.
In July, Fox Sports 1 has a rating period. It shows how many viewers follow the show on-air and online. A narrative, no matter how outlandish, can spark interest. Lake Show Life can state this from experience. Nothing brings out more attention from LeBron stans than criticisms about their star. Well, what does this mean?
Any media outlet bases its success around numbers. But there are four months out of the year that TV pays particular attention to their broadcasts. Those months are February, May, November and yes you guessed it, July.
If Jason Whitlock’s show is struggling for a certain rating period against First Take for example (FS-1’s chief competition is ESPN) sometimes a certain story or hot take (Need an example? Press play again above!) is needed for a much-needed boost to a particular show.
Now let’s take a look at ESPN’s daily NBA show The Jump and see the difference.
ESPN and LeBron James have a huge following on social media. ESPN has over 39 million followers on Twitter. LeBron has an absurd following of over 43 million. With ESPN having NBA games as a part of their programming package, the exposure is massive. Any other sports network will use any angle to get attention.
On a lower level of trying to get exposure, Michael Rapaport went on a strange rant backing up the narrative that James was disrespectful in Utah.
Didn’t know that he has a new podcast to promote did you?
Does Fox Sports have access to NBA games? Sure. But it’s only regional. ESPN’s games can go to national audiences. All about marketing folks.