This takes the term King's ransom to an entirely different level.
According to an ESPN report, a sponsored tweet from LeBron James will cost you about $140,000. If your mind isn't numbed enough...that breaks down to about $1,000 per character. Eight sponsored tweets from the NBA superstar will have him pocketing over $1 million.
ESPN was able to get the $140,000 number from Opendorse, a company that monetizes and executes digital and social media campaigns for athletes. James, who counts 23.2 million followers on Twitter, has the highest single-tweet value of any U.S. athlete.
"We're basically saying that the value of one LeBron tweet is worth $140,000," Opendorse CEO Blake Lawrence told ESPN. "And with that, you will reach 23 million people. It would cost you five times more to reach that many people with a TV ad."
Opendorse deciphers the value of a tweet, Instagram or Facebook post by determining athletes or celebrities' reach and active level of engagement with their social media followers.
While King James ranks first, athletes such as Kevin Durant ($66,553), Kobe Bryant ($42,389), Floyd Mayweather ($34,924) and Dwight Howard ($34,290) round out the top five for single-tweet value.
That being said, only superstar athletes command such exorbitant value. Lawrence made sure to mention that most companies pay athletes from $1,000 to $2,500 for a single tweet and that businesses could get a valid player like Super Bowl-winning Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco to tweet about them "for less than $1,000 right now."
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