Could LeBron James start his own basketball league?

Entertainment is going through a period of massive disruption as artists of all kinds have taken their career into their own hands and connected directly with fans.

Zach Braff skipped the studio system and used Kickstarter to fund the movie he wanted to write, direct, and produce. Macklemore hit it big by uploading his independently produced music videos to the web. Writers everywhere are self-publishing to the Kindle and other e-readers and skipping traditional New York publishers.

But one area of entertainment has stayed stubbornly resistant to this kind of disruption: sports.

There is a good reason for this, of course. An artist only really needs an audience—everyone else can be cut out of the exchange. An athlete, though, needs an audience and an opponent. The network effect of sports leagues is hard to re-create from scratch (as the USFL discovered in the 1980s and the XFL in 2001).

But it can be done. Ask Major League Soccer. Ask the regional amateur roller derby leagues that have sprouted up all over the country in the last ten years. It’s only a matter of time before a current professional athlete sees a business opportunity to stop playing for someone else’s enrichment and start playing for his own. (This is especially true if that “someone else” is a bigot like Donald Sterling. Imagine if the players on the Clippers has the chance to dump him and be co-owners in their own team.)

To make this work, it would certainly help to be a superstar. Which brings us to LeBron James.

When LeBron became a free agent in July, it was a given that he would play for another NBA team. It was so much a given, in fact, that just writing that sentence feels absurd.

But imagine this: LeBron did not re-sign with the Cavaliers after leaving the Heat. Instead, he announces the formation of the Players’ Basketball Association, a new league to rival the NBA. LeBron uses his star power to help recruit from colleges as well as the NBA. The new league builds up enough talent to create at least six total teams for the first year.

The league has some small rules changes and a March Madness-style playoff schedule, but otherwise it is regular, professional basketball. And, crucially, it’s the only place to watch LeBron James play.

The new league uses smaller arenas at first to save money. Maybe it’s a summer league that plays outdoors to really change the feel of the game and build a lot of buzz. The league sells broadcasting rights to Google, which streams all games exclusively on YouTube, Android phones, and to the Chromecast on TVs.

Cities that want to enter the league have the option to crowd fund their hometown team, with their stake matched by the ownership of the league. Ticketing, merchandising, and more can take advantage of the new low-cost technologies. By starting from scratch, these services can be dramatically cheaper, which keeps prices low at first.

After a few years of play, the league expands to sixteen or twenty teams and has a national presence. FOX Sports gets a contract to broadcast games in order to better compete with ESPN.

When LeBron is ready to retire from the league he created, he isn’t just a wealthy retired basketball player; he is the co-owner of a massive enterprise worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

This would be a Jay-Z level business move for LeBron. (In fact, Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Sports could be invaluable for getting other players to consider the new league.)

It is certainly an idea not without risk. But at some point, possibly soon, a star player is going to look around and ask the same question that so many musicians, filmmakers, and writers have asked recently: “Why can’t I just do this myself?”

The answer is: they can.