LeBron James is the face of the National Basketball Association.
While his title of small forward/power forward simply answers his position on the court, James’ demeanor is that of a general manager – seeing how he maneuvers contracts for players and delivered the Cleveland Cavaliers to its first NBA championship in his second stint in 2016.
The Akron, Ohio native is heavy on social media and one of the things he was promoting happened to be “The Shop,” a web series on Twitter that featured James and co-founder of ‘Uninterrupted,’ Maverick Jones. According to a report from ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, Uninterrupted put out the first episode in 2017 and it was viewed by four million worldwide.
It’s a popular theme, but James isn’t the only one with a barbershop feel.
Being the winners of two of the last three national championships, the University of Alabama football program is considered to be larger than life. Thoughts were hinted on the Crimson Tide installing a barbershop and after winning national title No. 17, the dream happened in February.
💈🗣Shop Talk Episode 1 Part 1 available now!
Featuring: @juliojones_11 @EJackson_4 @Anderson_365Full video link: https://t.co/Mm0O65kSZv pic.twitter.com/64xJMPyws6
— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) March 28, 2018
The latest addition to the Alabama football experience is located inside the Mal Moore Athletic Facility and like James, a new series “Shop Talk” has started in Tuscaloosa. Former players like Julio Jones, Ryan Anderson and Eddie Jackson all joined Nick Saban in the first episode to discuss social media, catching up with friends and reminiscing on old times. Despite the Tide’s views being different, James and Uniterrupted sent letters of copyright infringement to Alabama.
James would put out three episodes of “The Shop” before the Tide’s “Shop Talk” and per the letters of infringement, ESPN has it documented with:
“Your continued exploitation of ‘Shop Talk’ infringes ‘Uninterrupted’s’ copyright, trademark rights and other valuable intellectual property rights in ‘The Shop’ and significantly damages ‘Uninterrupted’s’ commercial prospects for ‘The Shop,'” the letter reads, in part. — Excerpt from ESPN’s Dave McMenamin
Hopefully, “King James” and Alabama will be able to work this out.
Stephen M. Smith is the managing editor and senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @Smsmith_TDALMag.
