LeBron James will make more money from his Polymarket partnership than from playing for the 76ers, Front Office Sports has learned.
The prediction-market platform is paying James $15 million a year under the recently announced partnership, sources tell FOS. James is not an investor in Polymarket, just an endorser, one source says. The length of his agreement with Polymarket was not clear, although one source says it’s an “ongoing engagement” with multiple “deliverables,” such as social media posts and other content. Under the deal, James will focus on promoting football, not basketball.
Derek Jeter and Eli Manning, who also appeared in the Polymarket commercial first teased by James, are being paid under “smaller” endorsement deals than James’s, one source says. The commercial featured a slew of other athletes and celebrities, including Spike Lee, Reggie Bush, and Alexandra Daddario; some of the celebrities were paid just for that one commercial, rather than for longer-term endorsement deals, the source says. Other than James, Jeter, and Manning, it wasn’t clear who has long-term agreements in place versus who received a one-time payment to appear in the ad.
A spokesperson for Polymarket declined to comment, and a rep for James did not immediately respond to FOS.
In July, James signed a two-year, $8 million contract with the 76ers. He’s expected to earn a little under $4 million from the NBA team during the 2026–27 season—less than one-third of what Polymarket is paying him annually.
Prediction-market platforms have been jockeying for attention and customers amid the start of the football season. Kalshi recently released an ad featuring former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch and counts athletes such as NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo as investors. Sports-focused platform Novig made waves last week with a racy commercial featuring actress Sydney Sweeney nude, using basketballs and footballs to cover herself. (“Sports.”)
Both Polymarket and Kalshi are official partners of the NHL, while Polymarket is MLB’s exclusive prediction-market partner and Kalshi is an “authorized prediction market” under MLB’s integrity framework, which has allowed it to do a number of team-level deals. The NBA and NFL have yet to embrace prediction markets. Sources tell FOS the former is closing in on agreements, while the latter remains a staunch holdout.
The prediction-market industry, which is regulated at the federal level, has generated a lot of controversy and numerous lawsuits—including from attorneys general in New Jersey and Nevada and other states, as well as several Native American tribes—because of its similarity to traditional sports betting, which is regulated on a state-by-state basis. The issue of whether sports-event contracts must be regulated at the state or federal level is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court.
Polymarket is backed by the parent of the New York Stock Exchange and 1789 Capital, Donald Trump Jr.’s investment firm, which recently plugged an additional $1 billion into the business.
