LeBron James has long been one of the richest athletes in the game, with more than $500 million in career salary and a reported net worth of about $1.7 billion. Now there’s another layer to the financial machine behind him: Bloomberg reports that he borrowed nearly $300 million from two life insurance companies through a structure tied to former Lakers owner Mark Walter’s firm.
The first deal came in 2018, just months before James signed a four-year, $154 million contract with the Lakers. Bloomberg’s Weihua Li, Sridhar Natarajan and Alexandre Rajbhandari reported that the financing ran through an LLC named King James Funding, which issued asset-backed bonds purchased by the insurers. In practice, that gave James access to immediate cash based on future income.
The key detail is what backed the bonds. It wasn’t his NBA salary.
Instead, the report says the collateral came from future revenue streams, including money outside basketball and income from his Nike deal. The 2018 bonds carried a 4.8% interest rate and mature in 2049.
A spokesperson for James called the arrangement a standard move for someone with that level of wealth.
James’ company later paid down part of the debt, then took on more borrowing. By the end of 2025, about $245 million of the original bonds were still listed on the insurers’ books.
A second transaction followed around the time James signed his two-year, $97 million extension with the Lakers in August 2022. In that deal, the same insurers bought another $60 million in bonds issued by his LLC. Those bonds carry a 5.75% interest rate and a 34-year term.
James’ spokesperson said both transactions were backed by independent third-party credit ratings, and that the 2022 deal was fully approved by the NBA.
Walter’s involvement makes the setup even more notable. He later became connected to the Lakers through his $10 billion purchase and eventual $12.5 billion sale a few weeks ago. Bloomberg also reported that the lending arrangement began before Walter started acquiring an ownership stake in the franchise, and there’s no sign that James’ loans are tied to the federal scrutiny surrounding major parts of Walter’s business empire.
What the reporting makes clear is that James’ financial playbook reaches far beyond his playing contracts. Instead of waiting years for sponsorship and business money to trickle in, he turned future earnings into immediate capital through long-term borrowing.
That kind of move is available only to a very small group of athletes and entertainers, the ones whose endorsement, licensing and royalty income can keep paying for decades. For James, even that $154 million Lakers deal wasn’t necessarily the biggest money move he made in 2018. Behind the scenes, King James was already tapping the value of the LeBron James brand itself.
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