Simon Lewis, New York
LISTEN carefully, very carefully.
Everybody. Quiet please!
Did you hear that? The creaking, grinding sound you can just make out beneath your feet is Planet Earth rotating on its axis once more.
That's right, the world is moving again after a breathless eight days in which humanity as a whole stopped, waited and wondered what the answer to the most vital question of the century to date would be, namely: which basketball team LeBron James would choose next.
Well, at least according to American sports cable television network ESPN it was vital.
The “self-proclaimed worldwide leader in sports” proudly ate itself on Thursday night as it devoted an hour-long special to “The Decision”. This was a programme that saw NBA free agent James, the 25-year-old hoops phenomenon, exclusively reveal who would be signing his cheques for the next few years.
This was a news story that had been rumbling on for at least a year as King James played out his contract with a Cleveland Cavaliers team form his native Ohio he had carried for seven years and with whom he had twice been named the league's Most Valuable Player without ever winning a championship.
It was a story that had seen everyone from Tiger Woods, New York City Mike Bloomberg and US President Barack Obama venture an opinion as to whom James should sign for.
And it was also a story that ESPN's journalists had been working furiously with the rest of the US sports media to splash, elevating to a frenzy on July 1, when James' contract actually expired.
At least until this Tuesday when the network proudly announced it had locked down LeBron and the story and given the superstar an hour-long platform to announce his decision.
Now there isn't a TV station worth its salt that would turn down the opportunity to showcase a major sports story like this, although, amazingly, two other free agents, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, had not required an hour of primetime television a day earlier to announce their intentions to sign, and in Wade's case re-sign, with the Miami Heat.
When LeBron revealed his decis, sorry, Decision, it came in front of an audience of children in a non-descript gym with the only colour being provided by a large and strategically-placed glass refrigerator cabinet sporting the logos and product of one of the player's sponsors.
But still, this was, after all, what one of ESPN's panel of experts declared as the single most important event since Reggie Jackson signed for the New York Yankees in 1976.
Yes folks, it was that big. King James choosing his next court is officially bigger than the Good Friday Agreement, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, 9/11 and Séamus Darby's goal all rolled into one.
Oh, and he chose the Miami Heat. According to James, his final decision to turn his back on re-signing with Cleveland and shun the advances of Chicago, New Jersey and New York, had been made overnight in a dream.
Announcement made and sufficiently pleased with itself for orchestrating it's scoop, ESPN then promptly imploded from the sheer force of its own sense of importance. Or maybe that was my dream.
