Matt Kenseth & LeBron James: Teammates?

Two guys who may or may not have inspired the largest changes to their respective sports in the past decade may have just become the most unlikely of bedfellows.

Yeah, the ever-exciting Matt Kenseth and the pretty-roundly-hated-except-for-in-Miami LeBron James can now consider themselves teammates. Kind of.

From the AP:�

BOSTON (AP)?LeBron James is going into business with the Boston Red Sox.

The baseball team's sister company, Fenway Sports Marketing, says it has signed James to a long-term deal to handle his marketing. As part of the deal, James has obtained a small piece of the soccer team Liverpool in the English Premier League, FSM president Sam Kennedy said Wednesday.

FSM is owned by Fenway Sports Group, which is also the parent company of the Red Sox and Liverpool FC and a co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing. FSM handles the marketing for all of them, and now it will handle James, too.

Kenseth as well as NASCAR's favorite backflipper Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and David Ragan all fall under the Roush Fenway Racing banner after team owner Jack Roush partnered 50/50 with FSG in 2007.

Kenseth, of course, played some role in NASCAR moving to its current Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff-type championship system after winning his first Sprint Cup title in 2003. That season, Kenseth won just one of the 36 races and otherwise killed 'em with generic, Kenseth-like consistency.

As for LeBron, well, I'm not sure I need to explain his whole self-inflating�Cleveland-to-Miami move last summer. Let's just say if you've heard anyone say "I'm taking my talents to..." in the past nine months or so, you can blame LeBron (and blindly hate him if you'd like).

The odds are probably slim and none that Kenseth or the rest of his Roush teammates will ever�hang with King James, much less get him to a NASCAR track near you. Heck, Carl Edwards carries the most starpower among them, and he spends his time with Jared from Subway. Almost assuredly, I can tell you LeBron's status (personally-viewed or�otherwise)�is a bit above a sandwich shill.

For more on the new marketing agreement for LeBron and his new partial ownership in a soccer team, check out our boys at Ball Don't Lie.

Magdalena Wróbel Connie Nielsen Melissa George Cameron Richardson Chandra West