Amtrak wants LeBron James to give it a shot.
America’s passenger railroad is trying to turn one of the most famous athletes on the planet into a transit user.
Fresh after inking a deal with the Philadelphia 76ers to continue his historic career, reports from inside LeBron’s camp indicate that the NBA’s All-Time leading scorer intends to live in New York City and commute to Philadelphia.
That’s about 100 miles to Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, where the Sixers play their homes games. Across the river in Camden, New Jersey, is where the team’s practice facility is located.
It’s not that unheard of for someone to live in one of the major cities along the East Coast and travel to another for work. James’ former coach in Los Angeles, JJ Redick, did something similar during his playing career as a member of the Sixers.
There are more than 50 million people that live in “Northeast Megalopolis” along the Atlantic Coast, from Boston to Washington D.C., and there’s lots of mobility options for commuters. But most people make those daily commutes by either car or train.
But LeBron James, according to multiple reports, intends to make the trip by helicopter.
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According to the Athletic, James has not committed to a daily commuting plan just yet. Where he’s going to reside when he’s not playing hasn’t been publicly released either.
He just agreed to a deal with the Sixers less than two weeks ago, shocking the NBA and sporting world, many of whom assumed King James would be returning to one of the other Eastern Conference teams he’d carried to an NBA Championship (Cleveland Cavaliers/Miami Heat).
But if LeBron James decides to go the helicopter route, his commute would be about 45 minutes—assuming wind doesn’t keep his flights grounded.
But what if there were another option? Amtrak wants to remind LeBron James that there is.
Shortly after news broke that James would be flying to and from work, Amtrak tagged LeBron on Twitter (or X, the everything app) with a stock image of an Acela train with the caption: “u like what u see?”
The Amtrak social media team followed that up with a pair of playfully desperate posts to get a response from James.
“Seriously, you can have any seat on the train,” one post reads. The other shows a fictional text exchange between Amtrak and James, following up to see if he’d decided to take them up on their offer.
Should LeBron James take the train to Philadelphia?
If, for some reason, LeBron James decided to take Amtrak to and from Philadelphia for games, he could benefit from the use of Amtrak’s revamped Acela trains, which are capable of reaching speeds of up to 160 mph.
Those are currently the fastest trains in operation in the U.S., and they’ve already logged more than 1 million riders in under a year.
The total time he could expect to be on the train? About an hour and 15 minutes, give or take.
There’s no doubt that if LeBron took Amtrak up on the offer and decided to give the train a try, the passenger rail system would roll out the red carpet for him.
There’s also the inherent risk associated with flying in a helicopter versus a train. Trains are among the safest modes of transportation in the world, while helicopters are among the most dangerous (up to 85 times more dangerous than driving).
But I wouldn’t expect to see LeBron boarding an Acela train at a revamped Penn Station any time soon. Amtrak knows this too, but you’ve gotta try.
Until then, Amtrak will have to settle for the everyday commuter. But it’s fun to imagine, and it’s a testament to the current state of Amtrak for that to even be a viable option.
But maybe the decision will surprise everyone.
As NBA Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett once said, anything is possible.
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