By Any Means Necessary
23
For most of the past century, our people have done a very poor job of capitalizing on the natural resource of our talent and creativity. Our genius has generated untold billions of dollars of which we have received only the scraps from the table. But times are changing thanks to people like Lebron James. SpringHill Entertainment is named for the housing projects where Lebron lived until his rookie year in the NBA. Lebron and Maverick Carter persuaded Warner Bros. to ink them to an overall production deal – for film, television, and digital video – that Warner Bros. called unprecedented in scope. A few months after that, Warner Bros. and Turner Sports invested $15.8 million into UNINTERRUPTED. Their company has spent this summer producing the long awaited Space Jam 2. In early 2018, Lebron said on UNINTERRUPTED’s social media that Donald Trump “doesn’t give a f*** about the people.” Fox News host Laura Ingraham responded to Lebron’s comments by saying that athletes should stay out of politics and just “shut up and dribble.” Lebron and UNINTERRUPTED responded by producing a multi-part series on ESPN called More Than An Athlete in which the members of LRMR tell their story of coming up together and why their experience provides a point of view that has value far beyond sports and entertainment. While Space Jam 2 was being filmed, the NCAA was trying to figure out a way to prevent the rise of the next Rich Paul. They announced in early August what has been called “the Rich Paul Rule,” which basically mandates that persons wanting to represent student-athletes trying to enter the NBA draft must possess a bachelor’s degree, which Rich Paul doesn’t have. But Rich Paul is already established in his field. What this Rich Paul Rule sought to do was to prevent future Lebrons from being able to empower their friends and family to represent their business interests. The NCAA and many NBA owners and executives are desperately clinging onto the reins of their good ole boy network. Lebron immediately took to his millions of followers on social media denouncing the rule change and calling it out for what it is. Many media pundits followed suit and in the end, the NCAA had to try to save face by amending the rule. Just one more example of Team Lebron winning, and the old power structure losing. In an interview with The UNINTERRUPTED, Maverick Carter said this about the launch of Team Lebron as a business: "I thought the most important thing was just establishing a mindset of empowerment. The imperative, even then, was more or less trying to get Lebron to understand the mindset of empowerment, which he absolutely embraces and lives every day." He spoke about the sports conveyor belt that transports young Black talent from their communities and distributes it for the enrichment of mostly white businessmen. "Being on the conveyor belt wasn't what we wanted to do. It seemed like everybody who had been on that conveyor belt was getting the same results, and we wanted different results." And that is what this is really all about. Team Lebron seeks to revolutionize the way our culture gets used and viewed. Lebron is leading a whole generation of athletes and artists to take ownership over themselves and their work. When you see Lebron and the Lakers this season excelling on the basketball court, know that his being a winning athlete is only the foundation of a much bigger plan. The goal is to change the power dynamics in all of sports and entertainment. The plan is to take back control of our natural resources, for the culture.