How Much Is LeBron Really Worth to Teams?

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LeBron James

We don’t know where LeBron Jameswill land, but we do know that, no matter who pays him, he’ll make $16.5 million this upcoming season.

The question is, dollar for dollar, is he worth it?

With the help of two number-crunching insiders, we took a look at the main contenders for LeBron and projected out how much he’d be worth to those teams based on their current economics.

Please note, we’re assuming — for projection purposes — that each team makes it to the NBA Finals with LeBron next year.

Cleveland Cavaliers

Cleveland Cavaliers

Since they already have James, we’re projecting how much they’d lose next year alone without him.

What many people have missed here is that the Cavaliers are actually well positioned to sell tickets next year with or without LeBron.

We’ve accounted for a loss, but not the losses others have thrown out there. The Cavaliers have a line item here that no other team in the race has and that is Veritix, Cavalier owner Dan Gilbert’s company, which takes a piece of the secondary ticket market. LeBron built the team up so much that we found that, if he left, the Cavaliers would lose about half of what they would pay him to stay.

2009-10 Per Game Attendance: 20,562 (SOLD OUT)
Fan Loss: 41,000 (or 1,000 per regular season game)
Cost of Fan Loss in Ticket Sales: $2,293,950
Concessions Revenue Loss (assuming $12 per cap): $492,000
Parking Revenue Loss: $215,250 (assuming 350 fewer cars/game)
Sponsorship Loss: $1 million
Veritix Loss: $250,000
Playoff Game Loss: $4 million (assuming four fewer playoff home games)
LEBRON’S 2010-11 VALUE TO THE CAVALIERS: $8,251,200

Miami Heat

The Miami Heat left about 10 percent of its tickets unsold last year.

James will definitely help them sell out.

But does he make up the $16.5 million that they would pay him?

We found the answer was no, based on our projections. Note the Heat only make money on parking in their arena, which is already pretty much sold out.

2009-10 Per Game Attendance: 17,730
Fan Gain: 76,670 (or 1,870 per regular season game)
Cost of Fan Gain in Ticket Sales: $4,480,028
Concessions Revenue Gain (assuming $12 per cap): $920,040
Parking Revenue Gain: $0
Sponsorship Gain: $2.5 million
Playoff Game Gain: $9.6 million (assuming eight more playoff home games)
LEBRON’S 2010-11 VALUE TO THE HEAT: $17,500,068

Chicago Bulls

Since Michael Jordanleft 12 years ago, the Bulls have done a tremendous job selling out the United Center.

Leading the league in attendance minimizes how much LeBron can mean in ticket sales, but the Bulls can make that up with a run into the NBA Finals (and higher ticket prices there) and large market sponsorship sales.

The Bulls also buy their own television time, which means they can cash in on the hotness of the team, as opposed to other teams who just get a flat rights fee.

2009-10 Per Game Attendance: 20,725
Fan Gain: 39,975 (or 975 per regular season game)
Cost of Fan Gain in Ticket Sales: $2,568,393
Concessions Revenue Gain (assuming $12 per cap): $479,700
Parking Revenue Gain: $0
Sponsorship Gain: $3 million
Playoff Game Gain: $12 million (assuming eight more playoff home games)
Increased value of TV ad time: $1 million
LEBRON’S 2010-11 VALUE TO THE BULLS: $19,048,093

New Jersey Nets

The Nets have the most to make in ticket sales since they sell the least tickets — by a mile — of any of the teams in the LeBron race.

They’re hurt by the fact that concessions and any parking revenue will have to be split with the main tenant of their new home, the Prudential Center.

That split hasn’t been reported, but we’re going to assume that 50 percent of their revenue in these areas will go to the New Jersey Devils ownership.

2009-10 Per Game Attendance: 13,103
Fan Gain: 221,277 (or 5,397 per regular season game)
Cost of Fan Gain in Ticket Sales: $12,165,809
Concessions Revenue Gain (assuming $12 per cap & 50% split): $1,110,638
Parking Revenue Gain (assuming 50% split): $500,000
Sponsorship Gain: $1 million
Playoff Game Gain: $10 million (assuming 10 more playoff home games)
LEBRON’S 2010-11 VALUE TO THE NETS: $24,776,447

New York Knicks

The New York Knicks report almost 99 percent capacity sold, but on many nights those tickets are going un-used.

For this reason, we added an 800 fan per game concessions bump, in addition to new tickets sold, since with LeBron will wipe out no-shows.

We also added $3 more to the per cap concessions (it’s New York after all) and obviously included with our projections is the LeBron effect that will take place to sales on the MSG Network, which they own. After seeing what the Lakers did by doing variable pricing in the Finals this year, we fully expect the Knicks with LeBron to average $2.5 million per playoff game and that’s conservative.

2009-10 Per Game Attendance: 19,501
Fan Gain: 10,742 (or 262 per regular season game)
Cost of Fan Gain in Ticket Sales: $757,418
Concessions Revenue Gain (assuming $15 per cap & no-show replacements): $552,504
Parking Revenue Gain: $0
Sponsorship Gain: $4 million
Playoff Game Gain: $25 million (assuming 10 more playoff home games)
Increased value to MSG advertising: $5 million
LEBRON’S 2010-11 VALUE TO THE KNICKS: $35,309,922

LeBron cares about the value of the teams to him, not the value of his presence to the teams. If he cared about the latter, he'd wind up in New York or New Jersey next season.

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