How Much Did Web Sites Pay for Video of LeBron Getting Dunked On?

Video of LeBron James getting dunked on by Jordan Crawford finally hit the web on Wednesday, to the shock and awe of absolutely no one. But the dunk itself became the secondary story, as two separate clips of it were released just minutes apart on two different websites.

TMZ was promoting the fact that they had secured the clip, but ended up releasing it about four hours earlier than they had planned. That's because a previously unheralded site -- ebaumnation.com -- had secured the rights to a higher-quality video, and was set to go live with it themselves.

As you might imagine, the right to be first with a video like this is going to cost something. Here's how much these two sites reportedly paid for the honor.

According to The Sporting Blog, TMZ paid $3000 for their clip, and ebaumnation.com paid $5000 for theirs. There were also offers from ESPN of $500, and Gawker Media (parent of Deadspin) was willing to go as high as $10,000.

There's an additional piece at TSB discussing what all of this "checkbook journalism" means, but I think in the end, it's really just using your advertising dollars to pay an independent source. With ebaumnation.com garnering over two million page views themselves for the video -- not to mention the many more their watermarked clip received from being uploaded to YouTube or various other websites -- one could easily argue that the five grand they paid for it was ultimately money well-spent.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-23-2009 @ 5:09PM

Lucero Felix said...

Big deal, it looks like James wasn't even trying that hard. Everyone gets dunked on sometime in life, get over it!!!!!

7-27-2009 @ 2:04PM

SimbaDogg said...

its not the reaction that made this a big deal, like many other things in life, its your reaction that will either makes the story.

7-23-2009 @ 5:38PM

KingofKings said...

the dunk wasn't even that spectacular if lebron hadn't tried to get rid of all the videos everybody would have forgot about it within a week

7-23-2009 @ 5:59PM

jsmejio said...

so what!!!! how many times has Lebron James dunk on people in the NBA and made it look nice , geting dunk on one time does not mean anything

7-23-2009 @ 6:20PM

greatqb44 said...

Why did Lebron and Nike care so much...Either he is the vainest person to ever walk the earth or it was some kind of pr stunt from the swoosh

7-23-2009 @ 6:43PM

eheck4368 said...

who cares?

7-23-2009 @ 8:15PM

duaneasal said...

what more could i say but big deal!!! somebody actually paid for that?

7-23-2009 @ 9:19PM

zakk said...

It wasn't even like he actually got jammed on. It was weakside help defense. Lebron and Nike shouldn't have even cared about that

7-23-2009 @ 10:38PM

chucknorris742 said...

okay its not that amazing just cause hes like the most popular and probaly the best guy in the nba doesnt mean that if someone dunks over him that it should mean anything and the maurana thing im sure more people in the NBA have done or doing it right now and also all espn talks about is labron and kobe when are they gana talk about other people i mean they both are really good players but its just getting annoying but say if it was anyoine else they would be like nope not as intrusting and also it was like barely a dunk over if labronfell down then yeah it would be a little more intresting but i mean come on

7-24-2009 @ 12:12AM

teknikkle said...

no one cares about the dunk AT ALL.. It was nice but there are probably hundreds of guys who could have done that.

The point is Lebron one of the best players ever is also the NBA's best poor sport. And Nike has a history of doing stupid pr moves. Lets put Jordan in an American flag at the olympics, not to be patriotic but too make sure kids dont see him with another logo on. Thats why this dunk video is a big deal. Hundreds of thousands of people (probably more) have seen a tmz people or ebaumnation logo or webpage from buying this video. They will make more than what they spent just off the advertising revenue on their own pages. I have never been to ebaumnation before but I frequent similar sites. So ill check them out if their site is good they have one more daily reader....