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Lebron James recently announced that he will retire his number 23 to honor Michael Jordon. This initiated discussions throughout the league about whether other teams should follow suit and retire number 23 altogether. Clearly this is a respectful gesture on Lebron's part, but is there an ulterior motive? After all, despite his MVP season in 2008-09, the top selling jersey belonged to the Finals MVP, Kobe Bryant. Even if The King doesn't switch teams, switching numbers will surely catapault him to top-selling jersey status since his biggest fans will buy his new jersey. Even Shaq, now in the twilight of his career, has managed to have his jersey reach top 10 status this year by switching teams. Clearly a change in number or team will provide a reasonable bump in jersey sales.
Lets look more closely into the motivation behind such a move. We know it's not driven by money. In the NBA, the total receipt from jersey sales are lumped into one big pool and then all the players are paid equally from that pool. So yes, the Celtics' Brian Scalabrine gets the same amount as the Paul Pierce and is grateful to Pierce every year for that paycheck. So if not money, could it be ego? Let's see, millionaire athletes competing against one another on the biggest stage of their sports. I think it's safe to say there is an element of pride. It's like winning a popularity contest, and better because it's measurable. And Lebron's not the only one by any means, Kobe himself changed his number from 8 to 24 and experienced a big jump in new jersey sales.
Aside from being number one, at some level, NBA players must love the idea of having so many fans out there wearing a jersey with their name on it. It's a clear demonstration of love and adoration. What could be better than having thousands of fans wear your jersey, even years after you retire in some cases?
The good news for fans is that in order to reach the stratosphere of top jersey, the player has to achieve something. For instance, two other top jerseys were Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose. Howard led his team to the NBA finals, while Rose pushed the previous champion Celtics to a thrilling 7-game series during the playoffs. And as a result of their on-the-court success fans rewarded them with jersey sales. So in the end, winning on the court leads to winning in jersey sales.
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