We’ve heard about these secret societies for billionaires for quite some time. In fact you sometimes even hear about the commissioner’s of the various major professional sports leagues being invited in past year’s. What you don’t often hear is a star athlete being invited to attend these think tank sessions with an industry’s leading minds and wallet’s. That’s all about to change however, as Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, according to the Los Angeles Times, has been invited to attend the Allen & Co. media-industry conference in Sun Valley, Idaho with only a couple hundred of the world’s biggest media moguls.
“The first rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club”, just as invitees are discouraged from talking about their intentions of attending, any discussions at the meeting, or anything related to it. Here is what the LA Times had to say about James being invited:
James, who already has ties to the New York investment bank and is busy building his own empire, will be in good company. One would think with the economy in tatters and layoffs and cost-cutting the order of the day, attendance at what’s been described as “summer camp for billionaires” would be down.
Evidently there’s still some money in the travel budget. More than 260 old- and new-media chieftains, investment bankers, venture capitalists, politicians, agents and academics have been invited to participate in the five-day event, where they get to talk, listen and freely exchange ideas about what’s in store for the media industry.
Among those expected this year are Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bewkes, Sumner Redstone, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J. (Maybe Booker’s going to try to lure big media to his state; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appears to be skipping the conference this year.)
James has long talked about building “his empire”, and I would suspect being invited to attend an event such as this must make him feel like he’s doing something right. I’m sure Cavalier fans are flattered their star player has received this invite, but i’m sure if they could they would relay some cautious encouragement to ‘keep your eyes on the prize King James, the NBA Championship….’
