LeBron, Microsoft End Partnership After Less Than Two Years

MSN Has Shut Down Its LeBron James Web Site

Cavaliers F LeBron James and MSN have "terminated their contract" after less than two years, according to a source cited by Brian Windhorst of the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER. As a result, the MSN Web site "upon which the two sides collaborated and James' personal page," LeBron.MSN.com, "have been shut down." Though James and MSN said that they had "big marketing plans" when they announced the deal in February '07, Microsoft "never really activated the partnership." James was featured in a "brief cameo in a commercial for Windows Vista," but the "child-targeted website was the only major product ever developed." Windhorst notes the pact "started to fizzle last spring" when former Microsoft VP/Global Sales & Marketing Joanne Bradford Joanne Bradford, who arranged the deal, left the company to join Yahoo (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 11/26). LeBron.MSN.com features the following message: "The site you have requested has concluded publication" (THE DAILY).