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ESPN Offered $500 For LeBron Dunk Tape

Jul 23, 2009, 4:05 PM UTC

In Dan Levy’s breakdown of the checkbook journalism that finally gave us two views of the infamous Jordan Crawford dunk on LeBron James, we had a discussion of how much folks paid for these videos. A lot of it was based on a benchmark from a Deadspin post that Gawker was willing to shell out $10,000 for this video. We’ve learned through an interview with Executive Vice President for eBaum Nation Neil J. Bauman that the price tag for this video was far lower -- at least in the case of three other outlets.â†µ

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â†µâ†µBauman, who says he was the person responsible for securing the tape for eBaumnation.com, says TMZ paid $3,000 for their cell phone camera version of the video. Bauman says he received this information directly from TMZ’s Harvey Levin. Perhaps even more interesting is the revelation that, according to Bauman, ESPN did put a $500 bid in on the video that appeared on eBaumNation.com. In a follow up interview by phone with Bauman, he was able to disclose that eBaumNation.com paid out $5,000 for the video on their site. We have contacted TMZ via e-mail, but have yet to receive a response at the time of this posting.â†µ

â†µâ†µThe following is a statement from ESPN sent to Dan Levy via e-mail from Bill Hofheimer in the network’s PR office:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥We were approached about purchasing footage from multiple people who had various copies, none of which were of major value to us. We made a small offer and they declined. As we use footage from other outlets, we obviously credit them.â†µâ†µâ†µAs for the videographer in question, Bauman would not disclose the person’s identity, but described the person as “an invited guest to the camp.” He also said he was “in the basketball business,” and didn’t want to cause any harm to any working relationships, so he asked for anonymity in an agreement that was signed.â†µ

â†µâ†µBauman also said he sent still shots to Levin on Wednesday to prove he had a better copy of the video. “[Levin] wanted it, but we thought it would be much more fun to ‘dunk’ one over TMZ,” Bauman said in an e-mail.â†µ

â†µâ†µAs one final aside, Bauman noted that the person who provided the video to eBaumNation called TMZ several times in the process of the video being shopped to various outlets during the last week, but never heard back from them.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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