LeBron James' new Lakers jersey is flying off the shelves with a familiar number
For many Los Angeles Lakers fans, there were two phases to finding out the LeBron James had agreed to a contract with their favorite team. Phase one: celebrate like crazy and shout from the mountaintops. And phase two: hit the internet and preorder a Lakers jersey with LeBron’s name on it.
According to Darren Rovell of ESPN, LeBron jerseys went on sale at 8:45pm ET on Sunday, a mere 40 minutes after the news of LeBron’s signing broke. They went on sale with the placeholder number 00, though now sports retailer Fanatics and the Lakers online shop are both selling jerseys with the No. 23, which was his number with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
But even with the placeholder number, LeBron’s new Lakers jersey was insanely popular.
In the first three hours of sales, there was a 600 percent spike compared to how his new Cavaliers jersey sold on the site on the day when he returned to Cleveland from Miami in July 2014.
In fact, LeBron’s jersey helped Fanatics have one of the top ten NBA sales days in its history.
But while the Lakers official NBA shop has LeBron jerseys front and center, the Lakers actual website has no mention of LeBron at all.
Of course, that’s because the deal isn’t official yet. Not until LeBron signs his name on the dotted line, which Rovell says could happen on Friday. And that’s the earliest LeBron jerseys will be shipped out, too. If something should happen and the deal doesn’t get done, you can’t have a bunch of LeBron Lakers jerseys just wandering out there in the wild.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter at @lizroscher.
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