Um, why exactly is the NBA paying Twitter to promote LeBron James?

It’s already almost impossible to escape the story of basketball star LeBron James these days. It seems like no matter what TV channel you stream, website you read, or social media network you are on, he is being talked about wildly as the world awaits his decision on which team he will sign with . That’s why it’s a little strange that the NBA decided to pay Twitter to promote James a little more. Yes, this is the latest sponsored trending topic on the service.

If you look at the right column on twitter.com you will see The name of LeBron James at the bottom of the Trending Topics section, highlighted by a large yellow “Promoted” icon. At first I thought maybe James himself was paying for the promotion (which would be kind of funny in the ultimate vanity sense), or maybe his main sponsor Nike was. But no, it’s actually the NBA itself paying Twitter to promote James’ name – as you can see when you hover over his name.

So why the hell is the NBA paying to promote just one player? Well if you click on the topic you will see the Tweeter they also pay at the top. “For all your updates on LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and other NBA free agencies, check out 2010 Decision on NBA.com” which is then followed by a link to nba.com.

This is actually a pretty smart move on the NBA’s part. If they had just promoted something like “NBA Free Agency”, I doubt as many people would click on the trending topic (and the following link). But LeBron James attracts crowds both in real and virtual life. The NBA therefore relies on the name of its biggest star. Clever.

Sponsored Trending Topics are the latest money-making Twitter idea to be tested. They started appearing last month, when Disney/Pixar promotes Toy Story 3.

Humorously, the NBA also managed to get outclassed in the arena of tweets promoted by popular Twitter user Conan O’Brien. He currently has a best tweet (meaning it’s been retweeted tons of times) under the topic “LeBron James” which says: “I don’t care where LeBron James ends up… As long as it’s not at 11 p.m. on TBS.”