LeBron James May Sue Beer Company After He Held Their Beer During Playoffs
Hey, yeah, Lebron? Quit being the absolute worst.
I am sick of LeBron James. LeBron James is pissing me off. LeBron James needs to be stopped.
James was trying to look cool in a blowout Game One win over the Raptors earlier this week and he picked up a Great Leakes beer from a server courtside. He acted like he was going to take a sip, but immediately put the bottle down, but of course it made headlines. What the hell else is SportScenter supposed to talk about?
Anyways, the brewing company had some fun with the situation and posted this tweet. It has since been deleted:
What company on this planet, specifically a small brewery, wouldn’t take advantage of this situation? Well it may have been a bad move for the company as James may just sue them.
Here is the scoop via Yahoo!:
The bottle was in James’ hand for about a second, maybe less. But that was enough time for the beer company, Great Lakes Brewing Co., to take the image and run with it. Then they kept running. The following day, the company announced a discount on select drinks at its pub, and promoted the special using James’ image. That tweet has also since been deleted. Perhaps that’s because James and his associates weren’t happy with the company’s use of his likeness. James has no business relationship with Great Lakes Brewing. According to cleveland.com, citing a source close to James, the Cavs star and his people “would consider legal action” against the company.
And their displeasure isn’t just based on the fact that James doesn’t endorse any Great Lakes products. It’s because there’s some history here. Back in 2010, after James left Cleveland to join the Miami Heat as a free agent, Great Lakes sold a special pale ale named “Quitness” — a play off Nike’s “Witness” campaign with LeBron — at its downtown pub.
Yep, you guessed it, Great Lakes Brewing is based out of Cleveland. Cleveland, James’ favorite place in the world, his ‘sort of’ hometown. That same place he left, came back to, and delivered a championship.
But if LeBron isn’t happy, and possible money is involved, I guess it’s fine for him to throw the people of Cleveland under the bus. Here’s the thing, I don’t think LeBron actually gives a damn about you, Cleveland, sorry to break it to you.
Here’s what he told cleveland.com about the whole situation:
“This is about the last thing I’m trying to worry about right now, my agent and my legal team will take care of it, but yeah I know [Great Lakes] is trying to benefit off of me. And I heard they were the same company that made all those ‘Quitness’ beers, and now they’re trying to benefit off me this way? Yeah, it’s pretty funny.”
Regardless, this is a ridiculous situation. It will be interesting to see if he takes legal action. I kind of hope he does, which would be a mistake, but it would be awesome to see how the people of Cleveland react.
[H/T Barstool]
