LeBron James Traded!

Well, the headline might be a little -- heck, a lot -- misleading, but it's nevertheless true that world-famous professional basketball star LeBron James, all 20 years of him, has changed hands: Longtime Cleveland Cavaliers owner Gordon Gund announced an agreement yesterday to sell a controlling interest in the NBA team, as well as the arena that bears his name, to a group led by Quicken Loans Chairman Daniel Gilbert.

According to Tom Withers' story from the Associated Press, Gilbert and Co. will pay $375 million for what's said to be about 90% of the Cavaliers organization. (Online mortgage company Quicken Loans does in fact derive its name from Intuit (Nasdaq: INTU): Gilbert founded the company as Rock Financial, took it public, sold to Intuit -- which changed the name -- and then bought it back, along with all the branding, in 2002.) Gund, who paid $20 million for the team in 1983, did pretty well for himself.

Unfortunately for sports-loving financial statement readers in the United States, we don't get many detailed glimpses inside the financial workings of big-time professional sports in this country: No major American team is currently a pure-play on a major exchange, so you have to go to companies like Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), which controls New York's Knicks and Rangers. (For interesting reading, check out the financial statements of British soccer team Manchester United, which battles with the New York Yankees for the title of "World's Most Valuable Sports Franchise.")

And so we're left to marvel at the ever-increasing sums paid for teams in the major leagues. The NFL is the biggest game in town. Its salary cap and television revenue-sharing policies ensure competitive parity across the league, while a relatively short schedule creates demand through scarcity, helping drive ticket prices upward. On the other hand, the NBA's stars are among the biggest names in all of sports, helped in no small way by the fact that, unlike NFL players, their faces are visible at all times. (An interesting article on About.com discusses this in much more detail.)

The Cavaliers deal, meanwhile, would seem to illustrate much about the different kinds of sports owners out there. Cavaliers backers haven't had much to celebrate since Michael Jordan sank a jump shot over Craig Ehlo in 1989, ending the team's championship-less Cinderella run at the NBA pantheon. Rather than bounce back, however, the franchise seemed content to wait for then-4-year-old Clevelander LeBron James to graduate high school in 2003 before making another move. Fan moaning aside, that seems to have worked out pretty well for Gund.

Gilbert, meanwhile, is taking on considerable risk by shelling out big dollars for a small-market franchise -- though the opportunity to capitalize is certainly there. With the massively hyped, talented and popular James, all eyes -- including eyes overseas, where basketball competes gamely with soccer in many countries -- are currently on Cleveland.

That could mean big television and merchandising revenues for the next decade and beyond, and it's certainly what Nike (NYSE: NKE) was thinking when it signed James to a $90 million long-term endorsement contract before he'd played a single NBA game. The team -- and Gilbert -- will need them to succeed, as  fighting the big-market boys in American pro sports is no small task. Just ask Craig Ehlo.

Fool contributor Dave Marino-Nachison doesn't own any of the companies in this article.