Rumors have come about of late that make it look more possible that LeBron James will be coming aboard with the Brand new York Knicks after this year.

When LeBron turns into a free agent after the end of the 2010 season, the Cavs will be in the number one position to re-sign him. This is a result of the Larry Bird rule, which lets a team to go over the salary limit in order to sign their own free agent.

The Knicks will offer James a max contract, although they will not be able to offer LeBron as much as Cleveland. So they became resourceful in the giant city and came up with a way to get around that annoying salary cap.

The chitchat is that New York will not only give James a huge contract, although also his own cable channel. You see, the Knicks are wholly owned by Cablevision, a cable TV giant.

LeBron would get profits from the advertisers on his cable channel. According to basketball regulations, the team might not be allowed to set up these advertisements/sponsors for LeBron; he would have to handle that on his own. But I believe we might all acknowledge that James possesses enough connections in the business sphere to facilitate this.

Speculation is that the television network would broadcast replays of Knicks games (where the rights belong to Cablevision), in addition to other programming regarding James, the Knicks, and the league. Some are even predicting that Nike would look to be drawn in and produce their own television series.

The huge issue is whether the NBA might tolerate this. It appears to be to be wholly within league rules. The cable channel would be seen as a tangential privilege of playing in NY, similar to various other marketing perks that come from playing in a specific city. The income would be seen as non-basketball associated revenue.

This is a brand new and interesting twist in the LeBron-to-be-a-free agent saga. The broad consensus is that the Cavs are winning the stakes. Maybe that is starting to change?