Well, at first glance, the two superstars of their respective sports share little. After all, basketball star LeBron James towers over MotoGP icon Valentino Rossi by almost a foot and outweighs him by over 100 lbs.
So what’s the common ground? Both guys flat sell tickets. When it was announced that LeBron was headed to Miami (in that horrible announcement TV special), season tickets flew out of the Heat sales office, and their average price shot up 250%. Pretty impressive. However, Rossi has a similar effect on the GP race world. When it was announced that “The Doctor” would be racing at Laguna Seca, the track sold a staggering quarter of a million dollars in tickets in one day. Laguna Seca representatives report that before the Rossi announcement, sales had been flat.
The men share another commonality. Both are on the Forbes Magazine list of top earners in sports. LeBron is at #5 with a total of $40 million in yearly earnings, and Valentino ranks #10 with $35 million.
Oh, aside from physical dimensions, there is one more big difference between LeBron and Rossi. James is yet to win a championship – Valentino has won 8 MotoGP championships!
