Philadelphia 76ers star LeBron James (and his former Los Angeles Lakers teammate, Luka Dončić) had an attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to PlayVision Inc., a sports technology startup that owns the Bron AI sports betting app.
James, who has an exclusive endorsement deal with Polymarket, told the company to stop using his likeness without authorization after a Bron AI video advertisement that featured LeBron’s likeness went viral on social media Wednesday.
The likeness of James’ face isn’t shown in the advertisement. Instead, it’s just his back and his voice’s likeness.
But there’s no question that the resemblance is uncanny, aside from the jersey being word says “Bron” on the back as opposed to “James”.
James has a distinctive back structure and numerous tattoos on his arms that are visible. The Bron AI app video includes them all, or at least those which would be visible from this same angle.
And it would be easy to confuse the voice in the video with that of LeBron, given how similar the two sound.
But the way the video mimics LeBron’s walk at the end of the advertisement might be the eeriest moment of all, given how James’ distinct strut and swagger was recaptured.
The biggest difference between this AI-generated LeBron and the one in real life if the hair on AI LeBron’s head, compared to him now sporting a bald look.
Dončić’s likeness doesn’t appear in that same video, but he and his team clearly took issue with how it was portrayed somewhere else in the Bron AI app.
There was no way this likeness was ever going to be allowed to last longer than the few days it was before James’ team put an end to it.
