LEBRON JAMES PARTNERS WITH POLYMARKET FOR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

LeBron James has agreed to a partnership with Polymarket, a prediction market platform, as part of a commercial campaign. James first teased the collaboration on 5 September with a video showing him in a stylised "Polymarket HQ" lift, with buttons labelled "sports," "politics," "crypto," "economy," "culture" and "weather." He selected the sports button before the video ended. A full commercial was released on Tuesday, showing James carrying an American football as part of the campaign. Eli Manning is also involved in the star-studded commercial campaign.

The partnership emerges as Polymarket faces scrutiny over what events the platform should permit wagering on. Joshua Pederson, an associate professor at Boston University whose 12-year-old son entered an experimental clinical trial for a rare paediatric cancer, has criticised markets allowing people to wager on medical outcomes. Speaking to NPR on 7 August, Pederson stated that "a clinical trial failing is a more sanitized euphemism for, people are going to suffer, people are going to die, people are going to have one fewer clinical option available to them in one of the most difficult medical situations of their entire life." During the January 2025 Southern California wildfires, Polymarket hosted contracts tied to the progression of the Palisades and Eaton fires, with more than $1.2 million traded across fire-related markets.

The wildfires killed 31 people, destroyed more than 16,000 structures and burned more than 59 square miles. Polymarket offered contracts asking whether the Palisades Fire would reach Santa Monica by Sunday, alongside markets focused on acreage burned and containment dates. Caitlin Cooper, a basketball analyst covering the Indiana Pacers, shared screenshots from a July 2025 CNN investigation into those markets.