LeBron Special cooked up by Former ESPN’er Jim Gray
Written by playerpress.com, Friday July 09 2010
Turns out that LeBron James was not the person who came up with the idea of doing a one hour special just to announce that he had decided to play for the Miami Heat, something that he could have done in 10 seconds.
Turns out that former ESPN and NBC reporter Jim Gray, who also just happened to be the person that did the interview, took the idea to LeBron's marketing agent Maverick Carter of LRMR, who then with William Morris Endeavor to put the package together and present it to ESPN executives.
ESPN did not have a problem that one part of the deal was that Gray would do the interview because he was LeBron’s preferred interviewer. However, ESPN was not aware that Gray’s travel expenses and payment for the interview on “The Decision” special was being paid by the entity set up by Team LeBron and not by ESPN.
“We aren’t privy to Gray’s arrangement,” said ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys. “He came as part of the package. We accepted Jim knowing that we would have extensive time for our people to interview LeBron, which was bulk of the show.”
Gray or his agent was unable to be reached for comment and Gray’s interview in the show was widely criticized.
It took Gray just over six minutes, not counting commercial time in between, six minutes and 18 questions that USA Today’s Mike McCarthy called “excruciating happy talk,” before Gray asked LeBron what his actual decision was.
It is pretty obvious that Gray and LeBron rehearsed and knew exactly what questions were going to be asked and what the answers were going to be. It would not surprise me if Gray knew that the big answer was
As part of the partnership, ESPN turned over some of the advertising inventory in the show to LeBrons’ team to sell commercials to the likes of the
The eight brands featured during the show earned $2.9 million in equivalent advertising time, according to Joyce Julius & Associates, a sponsorship evaluation firm.
The exclusive broadcast received a 7.3 overnight rating, which is a huge number.
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