LeBron James’ close ties to his native Ohio and the Cleveland Cavaliers are well known. Apparently the King is anything but averse to even buying the franchise one day.
“I think if the team was up for sale, he would certainly be one of the people who will look more closely at a possible purchase,” Maverick Carter, a long-time friend and business partner of LeBron, told ESPN.
In November 2017, LeBron himself had already indicated his interest in owning an NBA team at some point. “Being a team owner would be insane,” LeBron told Jason Lloyd of The Athletic.
The idea of one day being the owner of the Cavaliers seemed tempting even then: “When an opportunity opens up, I’m in the right position financially and I have the right team around me, of course”.
However, according to various media reports, the current team owner, Dan Gilbert, is very attached to the franchise. A sale in the near future therefore seems to be out of the question.
James, who has held shares in Liverpool FC for several years, has spent eleven of his 15 years with the NBA in Cleveland before moving to Los Angeles Lakers in the summer of 2018. According to Forbes, the value of the Cavaliers is estimated at about $1.3 billion.