eBay Sales for LeBron James Items Increase After New Team Announcement

After an incredibly successful 8 year career with the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James announced he would be changing teams. On July 1st James effectively became unemployed and held millions of basketball fans in suspense while he deliberated over which team – of the handful that were courting him – he would move to. On July 8th people finally got their answer, James will join the Miami Heat for the 2010-11 season.


For us, the effect of the decision is just as interesting as the decision itself. So how has the team change affected merchandise sales? Below is a trend of all the Lebron James eBay listings over the last 30 days – taken from Terapeak Marketplace Research. All seems normal until the day the news breaks and listings more than double in the aftermath.


Its fascinating to watch the market after a major event, and as the NBA raked in about $4 billion dollars this year – it’s safe to say this is big. In less than a decade, LeBron has become one of the most prominent players of his time – and he is certainly among the biggest player franchises.


According to Terapeak, eBay has sold nearly $5 million dollars worth of LeBron James merchandise over the last year. That’s a whole lot of jerseys, hats, and action figures. A trading card from 2003, James’ rookie year, sold one week ago for $30,000 dollars – not bad for a little piece of cardboard.

Blog post from Terapeak Blog.

Terapeak is an eBay Certified Provider and a member of the eBay Market Data Program. Terapeak 5.0 is a full, web-based solution providing real-time market research and data analytics on eBay. Terapeak 5.0 provides eBay sellers and buyers with two years worth of trending data.