The circus surrounding LeBron James is described by a communications professor as a "speculative orgy." While James has been mostly quiet about his plans, everyone else - from politicians to current and former athletes - is eager to chime in.
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No rumor, piece of gossip or presumption is too small or too farfetched to post, tweet or report: James was house-hunting in Chicago with Michael Jordan. . . . James' team of advisers was seen in Chicago wearing Bulls' gear. . . . James and Kentucky coaching pal John Calipari are being shopped as a two-fer. . . . A locker room spat triggered the James/Cavs playoff implosion. . . . James laid back against Boston to grease his exit from Cleveland.
Obama softens stance: LeBron Rumor Mill
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Bulls fans use billboard to beg for James to come to Chicago
Supposed and actual LeBron sightings -- in Las Vegas, in Florida, vacationing in the Dominican, at home in Bath, jamming at the House of Blues in Cleveland -- come pouring in.
"This is a speculative orgy," said Robert Lichter, a George Mason University communications professor who directs the Center for Media and Public Affairs. The "What next?" questions that dogged James all season, once his intentions to weigh his career options became clear, went from steady drumbeat to media feeding frenzy with the Cavs' early playoff elimination.
July 1 is the date for James and other NBA players to declare themselves free agents so they can negotiate with other teams. Aside from his interview with Larry King, which airs tonight, neither James nor his business representatives are addressing the issue publicly.
But, for better or worse, everyone else is.
Anyone of significance, it seems, from politicians to current and former athletes, is asked whether LeBron will/should stay or go. Then their opinion is served up as "news."
View full sizeNoted basketball fan Barack Obama says he would like to see LeBron James end up with his hometown Chicago Bulls. That won't win him any votes in Cleveland.For those keeping score at home: Jim Brown (James will go), Josh Cribbs (stay), Patrick Ewing (stay), Barack Obama (Chicago loves you, man), Jesse Jackson, former Cavs coach Paul Silas and Donovan McNabb (ditto, ditto and more ditto).
"It's crazy," said Bob Thompson, a Syracuse University popular culture professor and media critic, who described the coverage as "a carpet-bomb approach."
It's a bomb, all right, complete with a countdown to doomsday.
A media event made for the Internet
Watch the seconds tick off on ESPN.com's special LeBron Tracker page. ESPN, the 24-hour sports cable network, had been airing a James countdown clock on its SportsCenter broadcasts, too, but took it down for now to kind of temper the madness.
"It will make a comeback," promised Vince Doria, ESPN's senior vice president and director of news. "I'm just not sure when."
On cleveland.com, The Plain Dealer's affiliated website, a daily "LeBron-O-Meter" playfully gauges how the latest tidbit may sway James.
Two teams are still chasing an NBA title. The Cavs, despite having the best regular-season record and James, the league's Most Valuable Player for the second straight year, lost in the second round of the playoffs. But ever since the Cavs were bounced last month in Boston, coverage of the ongoing NBA postseason has played Sixth Man to the James saga.
Because the story is big. Beyond sports big.
In play, should James explore free agency, are teams in the nation's fattest media markets: New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. As two-time MVP, James is perhaps the best basketball player on the planet and, at 25, not yet in his prime.
View full sizeNew York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not been shy with his efforts to bring LeBron James to the city.Unlike other team sports, one player can turn a basketball franchise into a contender overnight and immediately sell out an arena for multiple seasons. Lowly teams like the New York Knicks have been shedding payroll for years in anticipation of affording basketball's Hope Diamond and surrounding him with sparkling accessories.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg just launched a citywide "C'mon LeBron" campaign to lure James to town.
"He has the ability to change franchises and change cities," said Paul Fichtenbaum, managing editor of SI.com, which posts a daily LeBron James Watch page, "and there aren't many athletes since Michael Jordan who can do that. Frankly, he's an iconic figure who's transcended sports."
Just as the fortunes of Cleveland and the Cavaliers were changed that summer night in 2003, when the NBA's lottery ball popped up their way. It awarded the Cavs rights to the native son, a rags-to-megariches tale spun from the mean streets of downtown Akron.
So the LeBron James what-next script contains all the ingredients of a big news story. But rarely has a single sports event -- the Cavs' and James' stunning playoff collapse -- triggered such a flood of media attention about what's happening -- or presumably happening -- off the court.
Neither the free agency of baseball's highest-paid player, Alex Rodriguez, nor the retire-or-not summer ritual of graybeard quarterback Brett Favre ever matched the media's handling of this.
View full sizeLeBron James caused some excitement in Northeast Ohio when he told Larry King that Cleveland has "an edge" in the competition to sign him. But who knows what will really happen?July is almost a month off, yet James-related nuggets come dribbling out daily. Very few offer depth or advance the story. Much is unsubstantiated.
Rumors, gossip fill 24-hour news cycle
"When there's more perceived interest than news," said Tom Rosenstiel, who directs the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, "is when rumors, gossip, innuendo, fantasy and speculation kind of take over."
The coverage also reflects realities of a 24-hour news cycle. With little actual news to report but buckets of time to fill, viewers and listeners get hour upon hour of speculators speculating on speculation.
"This is what you see in all cable news stories when you don't know what the outcome is going to be," said Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, which offers journalism education and training. "There's like this drip, drip, drip of information no matter how speculative."
On the Internet, where anyone can pass themselves off as an expert and claim inside knowledge, the blogosphere is rampant with TMZ-ish rumor and Twittered gossip, no matter how salacious -- and with no consequence.
"It's not an information superhighway," Clark said. "It's a polluted ocean with treasure chests at the bottom of the sea."
View full sizeESPN's coverage of the LeBron James saga prompted one writer to call it "sickening."Besides the King interview, there's been no actual LeBron news to report. In fact, people are starting to complain that the coverage is out of hand. On philly2philly.com, for instance, Dennis Bakay called ESPN's LeBron obsession "sickening."
ESPN's Doria said he met with his staff from television, radio, online and print right after the Cavs' playoff loss to discuss how they would approach and package the story on each news format. That led to the LeBron Tracker and countdown page online, where James-related morsels are aggregated as a one-stop shop.
Likewise, SI.com's special James page throws up photos, video and other bits of information about the player gleaned from the Web.
Many are linking to stories on cleveland.com to access original reporting by The Plain Dealer's Cavaliers' beat writers. Since the Cavs' playoff elimination, postings with "LeBron" in the headline have attracted nearly 1.3 million page views on cleveland.com, and eight of the 10 most viewed stories were Cavs- or James-related.
The New York Daily News and New York magazine are even advocating for James.
The Daily News created getlebron.com that urges readers to "Help put the NBA's biggest star on the world's biggest stage" by submitting photos and letters to James.
The site features James Photoshopped in Knicks and New Jersey Nets jerseys.
New York magazine recently devoted a 12-page spread as a lighthearted sales pitch to James. Contributing editor Will Leitch, who said the staff spent about two months on it, said the section was based on the premise that, "The Knicks are terrible, please come save us."
While some might view the coverage to this point as way over-the-top or that it crosses the canons of journalism, sports fans apparently can't get enough.
"There's always concern about overkill," SI.com's Fichtenbaum said, "but our users will tell us when we've reached that point by the number of clicks on the site. Right now, it's heavily trafficked. The interest is unwavering."
All of which requires more traditional media to react, not just to 24-hour cable sports news but what bloggers may put out there.
For instance, The Plain Dealer publishes a daily log of James-related rumors that is also posted on cleveland.com -- a pass at letting readers in on the latest noise without actually endorsing it.
It's a thin line, journalistically, for sure.
"It's an effort to give the discussion a full airing, to cull all the randomness," said Debra Adams Simmons, The Plain Dealer's managing editor.
"But that's not where the bulk of our energy is. The bulk of our energy is being spent on what happened [to James and the Cavs in the playoffs] and what happens next."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: blubinger@plaind.com, 216-999-5531