LeBron James Sr. (LBJ), born December 30, 1984 (age 37), is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA. LBJ, also known as the “kid from Akron,” “King James,” and a critically acclaimed contender for the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) title, is arguably the single most significant athlete in relation to Hyper-Fan Migration (HFM) in NBA fandom.
I can already hear naysayers calling cap and raising their hands in pandemonium. Let me clear up a few things. First, I don’t consider myself a basketball analyst. I love basketball. My opinion here is simply that of a fan of the sport.
Second, in the context of professional sports teams’ loyalty, I use the term Fan Migration (FM) to refer to the fluidity of fan loyalty. FM represents the movement of loyalty by a fan from one team to another. This has always existed in basketball and every other sport. The typical scenario would involve either the trade of a top-tier player or the emergence of such a player. People like to win and to associate themselves with players. Years of losing (cf. the experience of Knicks fans) can cause many a loyalist to pack their bags for more favorable situations.
However, the suspicion seems true that FM has become more commonplace. It has reached extraordinary levels that I identify as Hyper-Fan Migration. Here, I seek to provide a simple analysis based on my identification of a premier catalyst in the context of the modern basketball world. This will then be used to determine, or perhaps justify, the legitimacy of FM from one team to another or as many teams as one sees fit.
Basketball Megastar
In order to properly lay out this foundation, I am obligated to enter the idea of basketball megastars into the picture. Clearly, Lebron is a basketball megastar. By basketball megastar, I’m referring to a player that has international recognition as a GOAT nominee. These two qualifications, international and GOAT candidate, disqualifies early basketball players. It’s not because of their skills but due to a lack of widespread international fame. Basketball just wasn’t a worldwide thing in the beginning.
Lebron is a basketball megastar.
While this international recognition is brought about through his skills as a basketball player and the popularity of the sport across the globe, it must also be mentioned that LBJ, according to Forbes, is the first active NBA player to become a billionaire. Not to mention that being chosen to be a part of the new Space Jam (Space Jam: A New Legacy, 2021) movie without large amounts of protest (besides arguments against his acting skills) does confirm widespread recognition of his current reign as basketball’s megastar.
Lebron’s status makes him the catalyst for a unique type of bandwagon fan experience that I refer to as Hyper-Fan migration (HFM). However, Lebron wasn’t the first basketball megastar. There were others. To say that he is the catalyst for this new type of fan phenomenon requires highlighting what makes his megastardom unique.
Michael Jordan
The first basketball megastar can easily be said to have been Michael Jordan. Well, maybe not so easily. It isn’t that those that came before couldn’t have risen to that status. What made Jordan a megastar was a combination of his talent and the time that he arrived on the scene. Those two factors unite to allow for the space to exist to be seen as such. Explosive talent plus a much wider audience with notable familiarity with the sport allowed for stars to rise to levels previously unknown simply due to what is available in the period.
While I hold that position, I’m also open to the possibility that another MJ of the era prior to Jordan may actually be the first true basketball megastar. Perhaps, I suspect, some may argue, it was Magic Johnson who was the first basketball megastar. But consider the popularity of Jordan’s sneakers. Worldwide popularity, to this day, does say much about the lasting legacy of the man.
Kobe Bryant
If we continue down this trajectory of thinking we would move from Jordan to Kobe. Jordan was so dominant in the league that Kobe, who arguably can be said to be the legitimate heir to Jordan’s throne, ended up copying even very minute aspects of Jordan’s game. He opted for a career as one wanting to be seen as the second coming. I consider Kobe to be the second basketball megastar. In a 2012 Bleacher Report article, Jesse Dorsey had Kobe listed as number one in the world in terms of popularity.
Sopan Deb, quoting Adam Silver, writes, “Kobe came of age almost at the exact moment that we became a digital league. I believe we launched NBA.com the year before Kobe came into the league,” Silver said. “And Kobe embraced all things digital. In China, he realized he could be virtually present around the world by providing content to websites. He saw an opportunity to make himself universal” (New York Times, emphasis mines).
These megastars drew the attention and loyalty of fans everywhere. Jordan certainly drew fans to the Bulls in the 90s when he was winning championships 91-93 and then 96-98. Kobe’s exceptional skills, winning five championships, caused many to become Lakers fans. These two caused massive Fan Migrations. Bandwagons to the Bulls and the Lakers were more crowded than NYC trains during rush hour.
Yet, all of these massive shifts in fan loyalties were from one team to another. They are not catalysts for what I would refer to as Hyper-Fan Migration. Lebron James is.
Lebron James as Catalysts
The catalyst for HFM is not an event but a person. In the Los Angeles Times, Angel Rodriguez provides a helpful overview of Lebron’s career (Lebron James’ Career Timeline). He began his NBA career going to Cleveland as the first pick in the 2003 draft. In 2010, he moved to the Miami Heat and subsequently wins his first NBA championship in 2012. James wins again with Miami in 2013. He moves back to the Cavaliers in 2014 and wins his third championship in 2016 (cf. Newsweek, Biography.com, & CNN).
In 2018, James joined the Los Angeles Lakers. He won his fourth championship with the Lakers in 2020. Some fans have debated the validity of the 2020 championship seeing that it was won during the COVID bubble wherein which conditions weren’t optimal for championship-caliber types of performances from the league’s elites. I do not make that claim myself. I’m simply pointing out that such a position exists.
Is Lebron the catalyst for fan migration in the NBA? Of course not. But I submit that he is the catalyst for HFM. Lebron moved from Cleveland to Miami, back to Cleveland, and then to Los Angeles. He already came into the league with legions of fans pledging their allegiance to him. Imagine how many fans he picked up along the way. I suspect that it is a massive amount of people.
These fans had to cheer the teams that he joined simply because he was on them. The two previous megastars weren’t functioning under the same conditions. Sure, post-prime Jordan played on the Washington Wizards from 01 – 03. At that stage, a championship wasn’t expected so FM wasn’t occurring at remarkable levels (if at all). Lebron gave fans the opportunity to jump ship and hop on various teams within short periods of time.
Rights and Privileges
Those who have sworn fidelity to a team do so through free will. With that being the case, it’s difficult to say then that a fan is unable to switch their loyalty. We can’t say that one is tied to a particular team for life. Such a take on fandom has sought to deny the possibility of migration. This raises important questions such as: (1) should a fan be tied to their city of origin/birth? And (2) if not, when should they be able to move/switch their allegiance?
These questions have not been answered in a satisfactory manner by those arguing against FM. Fans should be able to shift loyalties just as easily as Lebron is able to demand a trade for him to go to a different team. Why should fans be confined to a team whose dynamics have drastically changed? If management decides to participate in flaky administrative tactics a fan shouldn’t be confined to make-believe codes of loyalty.
The very idea of suggesting that others are unable to switch their loyalties is bullish. It seems to primarily reciprocate with those who have been brainwashed into believing that they are unable to switch teams. They then seek to apply the same rule to everyone. Fans are held under a rubric that they never agreed to.
Featured Image Credit: Jerry Jacques via Midjourney