July 16, 2026
WHEN: Today, Thursday, July 16, 2026
WHERE: CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit
Following is the unofficial transcript of an interview with LeBron James that took place today, Thursday, July 16, during the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit at Fanatics Fest in New York City.
Mandatory credit: CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit
SCOTT WAPNER: Because we're going to start big, and that's how you do it at these things. It's funny. I first saw LeBron James play basketball in person in April of 2003 at the Jordan All-Star Game in Washington, D.C. I think he scored 34 that night. And it was obvious that he was going to be a superstar. What we didn't know was that, 23 years later, he'd still be playing basketball, four championships later too. And, most importantly, he'd be doing it at the very highest level. That is as much a story as anything else. Off the court, though, he has created a business and media portfolio that has made him a leading voice in sports, in entertainment, and in culture. He's here to share his playbook with all of you today on how to build an empire beyond sports. Ladies and gentlemen, the King, LeBron James.
RICH KLEIMAN: My brother.
LEBRON JAMES: My brother, appreciate you.
KLEIMAN: So, LeBron, man, shit, I've known you over 20 years.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: It's the first time we've ever done anything like this. So, I appreciate you being here.
JAMES: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
KLEIMAN: So I never have to retire. You understand that, right?
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: In my world, I never have to retire. And I always think about it. For someone in your position, no matter how great you are, there will be an end. And everybody talks about the basketball side of things. And, as fans, we talk about what it's going to be like to not be able to watch you play. But for you as a person, as an individual, how have you started to grapple with the emotional side of knowing that the end is near and the sadness that may come into that?
JAMES: Yes. Well, I mean, I think it's having the realization that there's an end to everything. And my favorite basketball player of all time and my inspiration growing up was Michael Jordan. There was an end for him. So, if there was an end for one of the greatest to ever play a game of basketball, that I ever watched play basketball, then it's inevitable to all of us. So it's just being in -- being in reality and actuality at the same time. So, I know that the game of basketball will always be with me, no matter what, but also I am very conscientious and understanding that, once it's over, then that's fine too, you know, because it's about the things that you did when you played the game and the path that you laid while you were playing the game, and being able to lay comfortably after you're done and be like, OK, I gave it everything I had. And the game was good to me, and I poured into the game itself.
KLEIMAN: You mentioned Mike, though. Mike has talked about how hard it was for him, right?
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: Like, he retired twice. He came back towards the end of his 30s in Washington. And if you see him get interviewed on any platform, he still talks like he can hoop.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: The idea, though, of not having that in your life, you keep playing because you love it so much? Because it feels like you could play for another five, six, 10 years.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: I mean, I heard you earlier today say you could average 10 points a game until you were 65, and I believe it. But is it really just, putting everything aside, that you just love this game so much?
JAMES: No, I think, for me, like, one of the biggest factors as far as when the process for me becomes, like, overbearing, and I don't want to show up to the arena five hours early, or I don't want to be at practice 2.5 hours before practice start, or I don't want to get in the cold plunges no more, and I don't want to eat well throughout the -- throughout the season, or if I'm doing all the things that I know that's going to get me and put me in a position to play the game that I love at a high level, that's when I know it's the end for me.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: I know for sure, because there's no way I will, I would be sitting up here and talking about a 23-year career up until this point. And if you factor in the 10 Finals appearances, you probably can add on another four years to that. So you could probably look at like a 27-year career or something like that. So, once the process becomes so overbearing, and I'm like the alarm starts to go off, and I'm like, I'm not, I'm not getting up or I'm not going to work out, or I'm not going to train. I'm not training in July, I'm not training in August to get ready for a season in October, that's for sure when I know it'll be over for me.
KLEIMAN: So I'm not going to ask you about free agency. I'm sorry. But I have been there, so I know better.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: But what I do know is, you have been there before too, and this is a different decision, a different time in your life. How does all of that inform how you look at this decision this time?
JAMES: Yes, I mean, this is the third time I have been a free agent. Obviously, in '10, when I made a decision to go to Miami, I had my reasons. When I went back to Cleveland in '14, I had my reasons. So, actually, this will be the fourth. And then when I went to L.A. eight years ago, I had my reasons. So, for me, now I have an almost 22-year-old son who is now my former teammate, which is hilarious.
KLEIMAN: That's crazy.
JAMES: That's my former teammate.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: And I have a 19-year-old son that's at the University of Arizona. But it's my, it's my almost 12-year-old daughter who is pulling the weight a lot.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: So, going into my, going to my daughter, I was home for the Fourth of July, and my daughter came home after being out with her friends and cousins and everything, and I pulled her to the side, because she's up, as of age now, so like any time I leave, she will be like: "Dad, where you going?" I'm like: "I'm going with you."
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: "Like, where we going?"
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: So I pulled her to the side, and I was like: "Baby, I'm letting I don't want you to hear from nobody else, but I won't be playing for the Lakers next year. I will be playing somewhere else, so I won't be home all the time. And you may not have an answer right now. You can give me an answer now. You can wait. You can write it down. Just want to know how you're feeling about it, because you mean a lot to me."
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: Me being away from you means a lot. So the family portion is a big thing too, you know, my daughter and my wife and things of that nature, and I'm a big family guy. So, there's a lot of things that's, people are like, hurry up and make a goddamn decision, Bron. It's like, OK, it's not just about the team.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: There's so many other factors that I'm factoring in right now on what not only best fit me as a player, what best fit me as a person, what best fit me as a, what, my happiness, and also with my family as well.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: So there's a lot of, I will, won't hold you guys up too much longer, but the family portion is huge for me.
KLEIMAN: I saw Chris Paul say a few weeks ago in an interview when someone asked him about work-life balance, and he was honest. He said there really isn't any. Is that truly what it feels like as a professional athlete, that, as much as you are a family man, that ultimately it's impossible to balance it the way you would really want to?
JAMES: Yes, of course, because you're, I come from a household where it was literally just, it was me and my mom. So it wasn't, I didn't have the father influence around. I didn't have the sibling influence around, single-parent household, only child. My mom was a high school sophomore when she got pregnant with me. She had me as a junior in high school. So, a lot of the things that I seen growing up, I knew that I wanted to kind of just change the narrative of our family tree. So, it is challenging when you're trying to change the family tree, being present all the time, but also at the same time understanding that I have a passion over here that pulls me away from that. How do you balance that?
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: How do you balance that to the best of your ability? And I think the best thing I have had, I have had a team around and a system around that has allowed me to focus on keeping the main thing the main thing, and that was my passion for what I love to do, and that's the sport of basketball. I'm building the game and inspiring people to want to play the game, or just inspiring people to want to be great at whatever they do, while making sure the family was good on that side, so, when I did come home, everything was still step and repeat and you know—
JAMES: Yes, exactly. So I give up so much damn credit to my wife, Savannah. She's unbelievable, my mom, unbelievable, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, and then my crew, Randy, Mav, Rich. Everybody has chipped in their moments when needed. But the household is definitely ran by the queen, for sure, and she takes care of that.
KLEIMAN: So I saw you at the Jay-Z shows living your best life last weekend.
JAMES: For sure.
KLEIMAN: And I met you through Jay almost 23 years ago.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: When, you changed the game in many ways, but from a business perspective, you started to create a blueprint, which was that you don't have to wait until this is over, right? So Michael Jordan has an incredible career, but it was different. Magic built an incredible business. It was different.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: What was your time around Jay-Z like in the way that he informed you of how to look at business? Was it something he said? Or, for me, I always say that it was really more of what I observed and how I watched.
JAMES: It's funny you say that. No, you just, you literally just throw the words out of my mouth. So, like, you got to think that I'm 41 now, going on 42, and I met Jay and started hanging with Jay and their crew and our and our crew when I was 16. So I was 16 years old the first time I met Jay, met him in Chicago. They were doing a show. He was on tour, met him there, and then not too long after that came to New York. And if a lot of you guys remember, there was a game that was supposed to be played in New York, and the blackout happened, and it never happened. It still probably would have been one of the greatest games ever played at Rucker Park history. But the thing that me and my crew, we just -- we really just watched Jay and how they moved and how he moved and it was like a sponge. We didn't say much. We didn't ask for much. We just sat there. And he moved how a person that know who he is and what he brings to the table is supposed to move, and from the business side, to the way he walked, to the way he talked, to the way he greeted people. It was just an aura about him and a professionalism in his respective genre that we all kind of learned, and we all kind of took to this point now. You look at, you see, you still see Emory and Tata and all the guys around him that was around him 20-plus years ago, 25 years ago, when I first met him. So -- and it's funny. You said you saw me at the show. Literally, my first summer was -- with them was "The Blueprint" album 25 summers ago. So, man, he's been one of my biggest inspirations. I say M.J. was my biggest inspiration as far as basketball, but I never got an opportunity to hang with him or talk to him or whatever. But Jay is like my big brother. He's the one who's given me so much game and has taught me so much. And I'm always thinking about him any time I'm doing something business-wise or making a decision or whatever, thinking like, is this going to make him proud or -- because he gave me so much game as a 16-year-old kid.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: You see everything that he's doing from -- obviously, the music speaks for itself, but all the business ventures and everything that he's doing, being able to understand what you bring to the table and not taking less. And I'm not talking a monetary thing. I'm just saying, when I walk into the room, he understood his position of power and how to use that as leverage for the betterment of himself and the people around him.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: Because, I mean, he comes from Marcy projects in Brooklyn. He know what it means to have him to scrap and grind for everything. I come from Elizabeth Park projects in Akron, Ohio. So I know exactly what it means to scrap and claw for everything. So it's just -- it's a mind-set. And when you know you got that -- when you know you have the vision and you start to realize the power that you possess, and now you could tap into these resources, you become unstoppable.
KLEIMAN: And you mentioned Emory and Tata and his group of guys around him. Then you mentioned Randy, Mav and Rich. I think what's always interesting about the three of them is, A, people talk as if those were your only three friends growing up, right, where like you just chose the three people that were next to you.
JAMES: Right.
KLEIMAN: And the three of them haven't just succeeded. They have become the absolute best at what they do. What was the process of identifying that? And how did you look at people that you kept around you then? And how has it changed now, and how much harder has it gotten at this point in your life?
JAMES: Well, I mean, at this point, it's not, it hasn't gotten harder at this point in my life, because it's, those guys are my, they're my buffers.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: Like, when it comes to Randy, Mav and Rich, they're not letting anything that's not authentic to what we -- what I have built and what we have built to even get close to even infiltrating anything that we have done. But I took a chance. I was a second-year guy in the NBA, didn't -- no college education. You know, my education is my -- what I had in high school and then my street smarts and my book smarts from my O.G.s growing up. And I mean, shit, that shit goes a long way in this world. And to -- one of my greatest gifts is seeing the good in people even before they even know that they can accomplish those things. And I saw that right away with Rich and Randy and Mav. And I knew there was going to be a lot of things that was going to be said about us, said about me, because I wasn't doing it the traditional way of have an agent and let the agent kind of control everything, and you just go play basketball, and that's all you do. And there was a young lady a couple years ago. I don't even know if she's young, but I'm a respectable man, told me to shut up and dribble. I'm a respectable man, so she's a young lady. But I wasn't -- I wasn't playing the game by the same rules of the old regime. And that's just how I felt, and I felt confident in my guys, and I felt confident in what I was bringing to the table and what I had learned from my O.G.s and what I have learned from Jay and what I had learned from some other people or just watching it and watching it all unfold that I could make a big splash in this whole thing, not only in the basketball world, but in the culture side as well. So, yes, that was just my -- that was my feeling about it. Oh, shout-out O.G. too. O.G. I met O.G., one of the first guys I met too with Jay.
KLEIMAN: For New Yorkers, that's not O.G. Anunoby, man.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: Different O.G.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: So I'm sure everybody in here knows that you have fallen in love with the game of golf.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: But you're a businessman too. So beyond the hobby that golf is, as you look at this next phase of your life and your career, I would imagine that you're cooking something up. And I know...
KLEIMAN: How do you see golf and how that can be integrated into what the business of LeBron James is?
JAMES: I mean, you're very smart, by the way. You're very smart.
KLEIMAN: Thank you.
JAMES: You know I'm not just playing it just for fun.
KLEIMAN: Yes, because that wouldn't even make sense.
JAMES: Yes. I just look at it like kids that grew up like me, black kids like me, like, I just became a member at one of my hometown country clubs called Portage Country Club. Another one is called Firestone. You guys might have heard of Firestone. There used to be PGA Tour stops there. We just had our last Senior National Tour stop there, and that was the last tournament at Firestone. But back to what I'm -- the main point of the conversation is, I never ever, not one time, went to those country clubs growing up, not because I didn't want to, but probably I wasn't even allowed to set foot at those country clubs—
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: Or be around those country clubs. So, one of my main goals in not only of playing the game of golf with my friends, and we have a great time, we go out there and mess around. Almost said a wrong word. I forgot what channel we was on. We go out there and mess around. But I want to be able to -- and my goal is to open doors for kids that look like me growing up in the inner city to be able to go to country clubs at 7, 8, 9 years old, and be able to go out and caddy or be able to go out and rent clubs and be able to be coached and play the game of golf. And it's not because they can't afford it. It's because they have a passion of wanting to play that sport.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: So that is that is one of my passions. That's one of my goals. I will do it, for sure. It's funny. I'm already in my -- one of my housing communities and at part of the IPS project and House Three Thirty in my hometown of Akron, Ohio. On the backside of our medical center, we're already building a golf simulator. We're building two golf simulator and a putting green for all our families in our community in Akron, Ohio. We're going to start with that right off top. So we want to open doors that just wasn't being able -- being open when I was younger—
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: And to my friend group and my guys. We, what was open was outdoor basketball courts, open fields that we can throw around football and play free frog or whatever you guys called it. That's what was open to us. Certain golf courses and certain country clubs and things like, it wasn't, we didn't have that avenue.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: So I want to be able to let kids from the inner city, and it's not just black kids, but any kids that don't feel like they're welcome in an environment like that, I want them to feel welcome.
KLEIMAN: Yes. It's funny. You started playing golf. Fucking golf, man.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: It's funny to listen to sports commentators, period. But it's funny to listen to sports commentators as they analyze your decision, and you started playing golf, what, a year ago?
JAMES: Yes. Yes, one year ago.
KLEIMAN: And it's one of the main factors that everybody's speculating on. Like, well, how's he going to play golf in Cleveland in the winter? I would imagine golf can't be an integral part of your decision-making, but is it something you are truly thinking about?
JAMES: Listen, I love golf. I really do.
KLEIMAN: So, yes.
JAMES: But golf is a sport that you can play for the rest of your life.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: Back to the first question that you asked when I first came up here, when -- the end of basketball, when it gets to that point. So, as I think about my decision, understanding, well, if I'm in a cold city, if I'm playing on the East Coast, and now the golf course is closed in November, compared to if I'm in the South and they never close, listen, my main focus while I'm playing a game of basketball is to keep the main thing the main thing.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: And I have always have done that. I will find a golf simulator if I'm in the cold, for sure, that will hold me over until they open up. But, listen, keeping the main thing, the main thing has always been the main focus for me. And that's the reason why everything has worked the way it's worked. My -- I put my guys in a position to take care of everything out there while I focused on the game of basketball.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: And when it's time for -- you want to come over here and start to be a part of it and integrate yourself into that, but let's focus on the basketball portion first.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: And if we do that, the sky's the limit.
KLEIMAN: Nike. You are one of the two or three biggest faces that Nike has ever had representing the brand. You have been with Nike for two decades. Obviously, Nike has gotten a lot of coverage. The stock is down. The culture don't love it the same. How does that feel for you with your position at Nike and what do you think you can do and in general that Nike can do to start to think about the feedback that they're seeing, not just from the stock market, but from people into the future?
JAMES: Yes. You got to get back into the roots. You got to get back to being out in the inner city, having runners, how it was when I first -- when I was coming up, you had people that was literally out in the communities talking to these younger generations, telling -- asking them what they like, what they don't like. How do they feel about this? How they feel about that? Like, there's a responsibility as a Nike athlete to rule supreme.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: Because that's all I grew up on. That's all I know. That's all I have been a part of for two decades being a part of Nike. And there's a responsibility that I feel responsible for on making sure like we're not dwindling. Like, it's always been a cool factor to put on a pair of Nikes. When I made my decision at 17, while I wanted to be with Nike, the main reason was, like, what do I want to put on my feet when I leave my house every day? It was a -- that cool factor of what Deion Sanders brought to it, what Bo Jackson brought to it, what Barry Sanders brought to it, what Ken Griffey Jr. brought to the brand, all these unbelievable athletes, obviously M.J. Come on. It was just so -- it was a such a cool factor. So, can't lose our cool.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: That is universal. And it doesn't matter if you're a newborn baby all the way to an 80-year-old man. Everyone wants to feel cool.
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: Everyone wants to feel cool when they leave the house, man or a woman. You want to feel a sense of cool, so I think just tapping back into that.
KLEIMAN: I think that's really it. It's the idea of, like, I used to be embarrassed not to have a pair of Nike on. You know what I'm saying? Like, and don't look. I saw you look.
JAMES: Those are nice, though. Those are nice.
KLEIMAN: These are cool, though.
JAMES: Those are cool. Those are cool.
KLEIMAN: Thank you.
JAMES: Those are cool.
KLEIMAN: Those are cool. They got to make cool shit again. If you look at the pie of your life, no matter how much money you have, no matter how much success you have had, the businesses you have built, you own sports teams, you own media companies, you're on television yourself, hosting your pod, you can really do what you want to some degree. Do you worry about, though, how you're going to fill that space? Or does that space never get filled again? Because it's not going to be golf.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: But what can fill that space in your mind, do you think, in the future? Or do you have to retire that part?
JAMES: Yes, yes, that part of the -- that part of the trilogy, that has to have its own situation. I can't fill the game of basketball. When I'm done with, I'd be 24, 25 years in—
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: 26 years, who knows, whatever, when I'm done. Like, there's no way I can fill that void. But I can now focus myself on other things that I want to do and continue to do what I have been doing, continue to build on what we have been doing as a company. So, yes, I mean, I got a -- I got a pretty good documentary in the works too. So...
KLEIMAN: I'm sure.
JAMES: Yes, and it is going to be electric when I'm done with it.
KLEIMAN: So, before we wrap up, you're one of the most famous people in the world. This is crazy when you even say something that out loud. And you had all the success in the world, and you have been famous for so long.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: But do you ever sit at home still to this day, like you and Savannah, you're watching a movie, and you go, yo, can you believe this shit? Like, for real. Like, can you believe that this has all happened to our life? Because I imagine you have memories of your childhood that still feel yesterday. And then you look up and you're LeBron James, man.
JAMES: Yes. No, absolutely, man. It's super surreal. I just remember just walking up North Hill in Akron, Ohio, or walking down North Hill literally living in Elizabeth Park projects, like, and just going outside and just I didn't know any better. Like, I didn't know this was for the most underappreciated, underachieved, undervalued families in that community. Shit, when I went outside, I felt great. I see the clothes hanger that we would dry our clothes on, or families would dry their clothes on, I get a basketball and shoot over top of that motherfucker.
JAMES: Just like I just practice my shot over the clothes hanger. I didn't know that the crate that was punched in on the light pole, and you cut the bottom of the orange crate, and you're just shooting off, you're just shooting off that light pole. And it's -- I didn't know that. I didn't know that me taking a clothes wire hanger and opening it up, turning into a circle, and then stitching shoestrings off the bottom of it to make it look a net, and then rolling my socks up, three or four pairs of socks, and just shooting it in there, and just shooting it in, I didn't know that that wasn't luxury. So, to this day of where I am, I know where I came from and I know where I have been, so it makes me appreciate everything even more. I just -- I remember those feelings so vividly. I remember seeing my mom like, fuck, how we going to make it?
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: How we going to make it? So, like, yes, absolutely, I had those feelings, and super, super surreal, super appreciative of everything I have been able to do in my life and the help that I have gotten, and -- but the most gratification I have gotten is seeing my two boys and my little girl, just like they just living their life. That is my biggest blessing of it all, of it all, to be able to see them just like, "What's up, Pops?"
KLEIMAN: Yes.
JAMES: When they say that, I'm like, oh, shit, I did something right.
KLEIMAN: You did it right.
JAMES: Yes.
KLEIMAN: Well, LeBron, I appreciate you, bro.
JAMES: Are we done?
KLEIMAN: We're done. I would go all day, but they're in my ear.
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