MLB Network Analyst: "LeBron James Essentially Has Hunter Pence's Contract."

IllmaticDelta

IllmaticDelta

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I know we all love to talk about that baseball money, especially when comparing it to playing in the NFL. The low long term health impact, coupled with the guaranteed contracts and the ability to find a long life as a specialist are some huge advantages to pursuing a baseball career over football.

But the NBA versus the MLB is where our paths diverge on the topic.

The only pluses that playing baseball have over playing basketball professionally are the deep farm systems that allow you a longer opportunity to develop and make money, and the available jobs (450 in the NBA compared to 750 in the MLB). Baseball is actually the only major league sport with a > 2% chance of making it to the big leagues.

Otherwise, NBA players have similar career lengths to baseball (4.8 years compared to 5.6 for baseball), with the highest average annual salary in all of sports, and has just as low long term health impacts as baseball, potentially even lower. They also enjoy guaranteed contracts.

The average salary of an NBA player is up to $5.15 MILLION per season. The MLB is second at $3.2 Million. The average career earnings of a NBA player are $24.7 Million. The MLB is second at $17.9 Million.

In short it will be harder to find a job in basketball than in baseball, but if you are good enough to play either, basketball is the smartest sport to play professionally in the USA.
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NBA players also make a ton more in endorsements than any other league


The top of the NBA endorsement food chain is led by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Both are global superstars who made $42 million and $34 million, respectively, last year from endorsement partners. James has been one of the NBA’s top endorsers since he was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003. His current partners include Nike, McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Samsung Electronics , Upper Deck, Audemars Piguet and Dunkin’ Donuts.

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The four-time MVP is the NBA’s top endorser.

Five championships and 18 years of All-Star play transformed Bryant into the most popular player in China with a little help from his main backer, Nike. Bryant also has deals with Turkish Air, Lenovo, Hublot and Panini for merchandise.

The NBA’s top 10 endorsers pulled down $155 million last year by our count. It dwarfs the totals in baseball and football. MLB’ s 10 biggest endorsers earned less than $30 million off the field last year with only Derek Jeter and Ichiro Suzuki (all in Japan) making more than $3 million from sponsors and merchandise. The NFL’s top 10 made $55 million from endorsements, led by Peyton Manning at $12 million in 2013. The NHL lags even further behind with the 10 biggest stars making $15 million cumulatively.

“It’s gotta be the shoes,” Spike Lee told us 25 years ago, as his alter ego Mars Blackmon in a series of Nike commercials. And the gap between NBA players and others in team sports all starts with the shoes. The NBA’s biggest stars can command more than $10 million annually from Nike and Adidas . Nike represents almost half James’ off-court income, and James was the NBA’s leading shoe salesman in 2013 with $300 million in retail sales in the U.S. of his Nike signature shoes, according to research firm SportsOneSource. Rose signed a 13-year, $185 million contract with Adidas in 2012. A $1 million a year shoe deal is extremely rare for an NFL or MLB star. Basketball players move product unlike their counterparts in other sports.

Basketball players can also take advantage of the global nature of the sport. Bryant has made trips to China the past eight years for Nike and he is one of the brand’s main chips in its battle against Adidas in China. Bryant partnered with Turkish Airlines in 2010 and has been featured in commercials with global soccer star Lionel Messi. James’ Dunkin’ Donuts deal is for Asia only, and he entered into a new partnership with Chinese Internet services firm Tencent last year. These deals are not available to football and baseball players.





Source: Forbes
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2014/02/17/the-nbas-endorsement-all-stars-2014/


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