Soccer fans worldwide were treated to an incredible performance on Tuesday afternoon by Liverpool, coming back from a 3-0 deficit in their first leg to defeat Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez and Barcelona 4-0 to advance to the Champions League Final for the second consecutive year.
LeBron James was one of those excited fans, but he’s got more invested than just fandom. LeBron James owns 2% of the Liverpool Football Club thanks to a deal that he and his LRMR marketing firm executed in 201l with the Fenway Sports Group, who owns a majority stake in the club.
Brian Windhorst told LeBron Wire about how the deal went down earlier this year.
Basically what he did was, he took his global image rights and he traded them for 2% of the Liverpool soccer team. That’s a sentence that’s somewhat bland, but that’s crazy. He went to this company who really just wanted to be in business with LeBron James. Fenway Sports Group, they own teams. They own a soccer club, a baseball club and they own a NASCAR team. They don’t represent individuals. But they were so interested in being in business with LeBron.
LeBron’s investment has already multiplied five or six times over since 2011. And after making the Champions League Final for the second straight year, the value of that investment will likely continue to go up.
