LeBron James jersey sales just broke a record in the city that’s “not a sports town”

LeBron James has been a Sixer for about a week and he’s already setting records, because his No. 23 Sixers jersey just broke Fanatics’ mark for most jerseys sold in the first 48 hours after a player joins a new team.

Not the NBA record. The record. Any sport, any player, any team, in the history of Fanatics tracking this stuff.

The previous holder was Shohei Ohtani when he joined the Dodgers in 2025. Ohtani is a two-way alien playing in the second-biggest market in America, and Philadelphia just walked past him in two days.

LeBron James jersey sales are a message

LeBron James's Philadelphia 76ers jersey has set the record for best-selling jersey for a player switching teams

LeBron passed Shohei Ohtani's after he signed with the Dodgers in 2023

(Via @Fanatics) pic.twitter.com/E1BCFJ45s8

— Fullcourtpass (@Fullcourtpass) July 29, 2026

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Fanatics has been running the NBA’s e-commerce since 2015. Over a decade of data. Kevin Durant to the Warriors. LeBron himself to the Lakers. Every blockbuster signing and deadline trade you can remember. None of them moved jerseys like a 41-year-old signing with the Sixers.

And this happened in a city that, according to one very serious basketball scholar, is no longer a sports town.

You remember the quote. Josh Hart, fresh off the Knicks sweeping the Sixers in May, stood at a podium and declared “I used to think Philly was a sports town, I don’t know if it is anymore.” Then he went on his little podcast and doubled down, lecturing everyone about how Boston fans would never let their arena get taken over.

Congratulations to Josh Hart on the fastest aging take of 2026.

Josh Hart talks out of his ass for a living

Here’s the thing about Hart. He’s not a villain. He’s not even wrong that Knicks fans flooded the building in May, they did, and it sucked. He’s just a guy who says stuff. He fires off takes the way he fires off corner threes: high volume, no conscience, and he shrugs either way.

The Sixers were dead. The owner was doing hostage-video press conferences. The team got swept in front of an away crowd. Kicking that city was free. Anybody can talk tough at a funeral.

Then LeBron James picked Philadelphia, and the same fan base that was supposedly checked out bought more jerseys in 48 hours than any fan base has ever bought for any player in any sport. The most passionate sports city in America needed exactly one reason to show up, and it showed up so hard it lapped Ohtani.

That’s the part Hart never understood. Philly fans weren’t gone in May. They were on strike.

So enjoy the Eastern Conference this year, Josh. LeBron James is in it now, wearing the best-selling jersey on planet Earth, in a building that will not have a Knicks chant in it for a very long time.

Sports town’s back open. Tell Brunson.