The Melbourne Tigers Should Have Chased LeBron | Thebigtip

I’m disappointed that the Melbourne Tigers didn’t get involved in the bidding for LeBron James.

I know that there isn’t a snowball chance in hell of James turning his back on the NBA and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to relocate to Melbourne and play in the NBL, but that didn’t stop the Lake Erie Crushers, a baseball team from Ohio, from offering James a deal worth $1,600 a month.

What it would have done was get the Tigers some free publicity, worldwide, and if the Tigers really pushed maybe they could’ve got 30 minutes of James’ time to talk to him. Even though that may have been more far-fetched than James quitting basketball for baseball.

With the Victorian Government paying for Tiger Woods to swing around on the golf course for four days something in the vicinity of $1.7million, just over $400,000 a day, how much would the Victorian Government pay for six months of LeBron James, or 14-home games.

I would have liked the Melbourne Tigers to enquire with the Victorian Government if there was a possibility that they would be willing to pay James $400,000 per game for one season. If it’s money that is good enough to be spent on Woods, isn’t the money also just as well spent on James?

Especially after basketball was anointed as the most played sport in Victoria early this week.

If the Victorian Government agreed, providing the deal was not blocked by the NBL for breaching the salary cap through a third party payment, an offer to James ranging from $5million - $11million may have been enough to get you that 30 minutes to sit down with the most sought after free-agent in the history of sport.

And at the end of the day if it didn’t pan out, the publicity that would have come with the fairytale adventure would have been worth the trouble.

Can you imagine a back page of the Herald Sun reading, “Tigers chase LeBron”, as not being an attention grabbing story?

In the AFL, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney have made just as many headlines in their signings of Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau as they did in the chasing of the two rugby players. If Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney had have been unsuccessful, they still would have had headlines galore based on their chase as they attempted to convert players to the AFL.

I’m not disappointed that the Melbourne Tigers didn’t get LeBron James, or any of the other 10 NBL teams, but I am disappointed that they made no effort to create a story and allow fans to fantasise about what may be.

I picked the Tigers because of the Victorian Government’s spending on bringing out Tiger Woods, but all NBL teams could have gone fishing for the biggest catch of all-time.

The Harlem Globetrotters have their sights sets on James and Dwyane Wade. Everybody knows that it will never happen but at least it gives the Globetrotters exposure as they show-off the already made uniforms for the NBA’s biggest free-agents.

So much could have been done, and I find it unfortunate that nothing was done, because I believe it could have been a very interesting scenario to get hyped up about.

At the end of the day it all comes down to marketing, even the South Dragons claimed they were once going after Dennis Rodman, and I believe that the NBL could use as much free marketing as the could possibly get.

If it was good enough for the Lake Erie Crushers, it should have been worth it for the Melbourne Tigers.