I've never thought of the "This Is Sports Center" ads to be biased in any way, but apparently there are a few people out there that do. Namely, Phil Mushnick of the NY Post. The latest and greatest Sports Center commercial, features agent Drew Rosenhaus negotiating meal prices for Scott Van Pelt and Neil Everett. And while most thought the ad was humorous and harmless, Mushnick seems to think there is a deeper issue....

But while cute is one-shot deal, ESPN is left with a large, unsealed can of ESPN Brand worms. ESPN's in the sports news business, Rosenhaus and his long list of pro football clients are newsmakers, and ESPN and Rosenhaus are now forever joined in an advertising cross-promotion, the kind of special relationship that even minimally vigilant journalists avoid.

The next "scoop" ESPN lands connected to a Rosenhaus client becomes highly suspect, as do the following 100. Rosenhaus, after all, has some funky clients, including Plaxico Burress, Jeremy Shockey, Terrell Owens and Browns WR Donte Stallworth, recently charged with manslaughter.

Is there no one at ESPN with the authority, foresight and fundamental sense of right-from-wrong to have killed this before it advanced beyond a bad idea? Why would ESPN do this to itself? Why would it do this to its anchors? Why would its anchors allow ESPN to do this to them?

But ESPN always wants it both ways. It wants to be America's leader in go-get-'em sports journalism, yet regularly provides proof that it can't distinguish journalism from a box of cookies.

I can sort of see his point, but are we really breaking new ground here? Rosenhaus knows as well as anyone that ESPN is the "leader" in getting information out to the masses, and he has always used them as his first choice. The guy has been doing bits on "First Take" for years, and anytime something goes wrong, ESPN is the first to report it.

It's certainly a line that ESPN has to straddle careful in regards to Rosenhaus, but they've certainly bashed the agent in the past, and don't always give him a free pass. I think this is much ado about nothing, if you ask me.

ESPN's Cute Ad Raises Questions (NY Post)

Great pull by those involved in Monday Night Football to get Drew Rosenhaus for an in-booth halftime interview, but they might have wanted to get a pre-interview in before asking him about his client Plaxico Burress on live television.

The questions were great, and I understand that there are a few things that Rosenhaus can't talk about, but good lord that was pointless. Those are six minutes I won't be getting back. I also going to have some trouble erasing the memory of that "Andrew Dice Clay"-like leather jacket that Rosenhaus was sporting. Did "Member's Only" have a Black Friday sale that I wasn't made aware of?

Esquire recently got a hold of one of Lebron's new agents, and childhood friend, Maverick Carter (one-fourth of James' LRMR management team) for a feature on the "75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century" to talk about the marketing of his client and what's on the horizon. The 26-year old mogul is much more than a charity case and a friend that Lebron gave a job to and some of the answers he gives to the mag are almost a completely new way to think about promoting an athlete as a brand. There are talks of a possible ABC sitcom, a Buzz Bissinger written book and a story of how fun it is to turn down $10 million, but the whole thing is worth a read. Here's a brief section of the article in Esquire....

"Absolutely. If it's not AUTHENTIC to LeBron, then definitely not. We don't do sponsorships. See, sponsorship is" -- he points to the State Farm logo on one of the bike-a-thon banners -- "State Farm pays, then they get to put their names on it. Partnership is: State Farm pays to put their name on it, but they also bring something to the table. Instead of just money."

"The biggest deal we've said no to," Maverick says, scratching his chin and considering the options, "was $2.5 million a year. Now that's per year. Four years. Per year. It wasn't necessarily that the brand wasn't right. It just wasn't the right time for LeBron to do it."

To fully inhabit the future, LRMR is occupying every media medium and fanning out its breadth like a many-necked cobra. In each medium, they are partnering with someone who is tried-and-true. They are developing a sitcom with ABC based on LeBron; they are in talks with H. G. "Buzz" Bissinger about writing a book. (Maverick says, "You know him, he did Friday Night Lights.") They are releasing a documentary called, More Than a Game. Maverick's very excited about this one. He says, "It's true, it's real life, it's three hundred hours of footage -- the director was embedded in LeBron's high school world. If you got the best writer in Hollywood, you couldn't write a better script."

There are very few articles about Lebron that break any new ground these days, but this could possibly be the greatest glimpse inside "Camp James". I thought it impossible for anyone or anything to overtake the "Jordan" brand within Sports, but after reading that, it's not out of the question. When you consider Lebron's sheer popularity, and the globalization of Basketball, he very well could be the heir apparent to Jordan's advertising throne. What really fascinated me though was how both the author, and his agent, almost seemed to refer to Lebron as an inanimate object throughout the piece. He's almost robotic when proclaiming that his favorite drink when he goes out is "Vitamin Water" and he's even referred to as a "commodity" in the article at one point.

The biggest knock on Lebron James the player is that he's lazy and doesn't have the same fire that Jordan had. After reading that, I think he obviously has the fire, but it seems to be directed somewhere else, and not necessarily at an NBA Championship.

LeBron James's Magnum-sized, Ultrashiny, Nike-powered Lawn Mower to the Next Century (Esquire)
Buzz Bissinger’s Next Project: Book On Lebron? (Sports By Brooks)