LeBron Raymone James was born on 30 December 1984, in Akron, Ohio USA, and is primarily a basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA), also a television producer as well as a voice actor. LeBron plays in the position of a forward, recently in the Cleveland Cavaliers team, for whom he played at the beginning of his professional career in 2003, although in 2010 he joined the Miami Heat, only to return to the Cavaliers four years later, after the Heat lost to the San Antonio Spurs in 2014 NBA Finals. He will play for the LA Lakers beginning in the 2018-19 season
So just how rich is LeBron James? According to sources, in 2013 he earned a salary of $19 million with the Miami Heat, and collected $53 million from various endorsements. In 2014, James’ salary with the Cleveland Cavaliers amounted to $20 million. That same year, he earned $53 million from endorsements, and acquired $30 million from the sale of Beats Audio to Apple, of which he owned 1% of the shares. In regards to his overall wealth, LeBron James’ net worth is estimated by sources to now be a minimum of $400 million, which he has gathered through his professional basketball career, business ventures, and endorsements, and very likely to increase substantially as a consequence of his current (lifetime!) endorsement contract with Nike. Additionally, most recently in mid-2018, he signed a four-year contract with the LA Lakers for $154 million, and as such he is one the the highest earning sportsmen in the world.
LeBron James Net Worth $400 Million
LeBron James was born to 16 year-old single mother Gloria, who basically adopted him out to Frank Walker and his very keen sporting family. He studied at the St. Vincent – St. Mary High School, and while he was a teenager, played basketball representing the Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars, but then during his high school years, James focused his attention on basketball, continually improving his playing statistics, and catching the attention of the media, as well as the spectators which helped him excel as “Ohio’s Mr. Basketball”. He was featured in such magazines as “SLAM Magazine” and “Sports Illustrated”, and as a junior, won the Gatorade National Player of the Year Award. This attracted the Cleveland Cavaliers, as they chose him as the 1st pick during the 2003 NBA Draft. With the Cavaliers, James rose to prominence during the 2004-05 season, when he helped his team secure important victories, at the same time maintaining a statistical points per game(PPG) average of 27.2, then reached his highest PPG during the 2005-06 season, averaging 31.4. Of course his net worth was justifiably growing all the time, especially when the Cavaliers made it to the NBA Finals for the first time in 2007, only to lose to the Spurs.
LeBron moved to the Heat in 2010, and the team made the finals in all the four seasons he was there, winning the championship in 2012 and 2013, James being voted MVP both times, and leading the team on a 27-game winning streak in the process. On return to the Cavaliers, he lead them to the finals again, but this time losing to the Golden State Warriors.
During his career of over 1200 games to date, LeBron James has earned accolades and awards too numerous to name all – perhaps the highlights are the two Olympic Gold Medals he won with the US team in 2008 and 2012. So far, James has been rewarded with the title of NBA Rookie of the Year in 2004 and made it to the NBA All-Rookie First Team, NBA MVP four times, and the NBA Finals MVP twice. Most impressively, he has been selected for the All-Star game in every season he has played, and was also the Athlete of the Year 2012 for “Sporting News” and “Sports Illustrated” magazines.
Considered to be among the most influential sportsmen, as evidenced by his endorsement contracts, LeBron James is also a common face on television screen, often being featured in television advertisements, and the television sketch series “Saturday Night Live”, on which he has served as a host, plus the front covers of such magazines as “Vogue”. Apart from Nike, James also endorses products such as Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Brands, McDonald’s, State Farm, and Samsung – there is no chance of him going broke anytime soon!
In his personal life, LeBron James married childhood sweetheart Savannah Brinson in 2013, and they have two sons and a daughter.
Part of me wants to say that ‘Bron deserves every dime of his net worth; however, there is still something fundamentally amiss with a society which pays huge athletic men a quarter of a million dollars for playing a single basketball game when research scientists who labor to find a cure for cancer must endure on little more than subsistence wages.