I think consumer electronics and sports are a lot alike: fans fight for their home teams / favorite devices, follow the latest news and developments intently, and interact with each other about the intricacies of their favorite device / team.

As such, I found a good deal of similarity in the difficult time LeBron James and Apple are having:

• Apple is the best marketer of any entity in business.
• LeBron James has been the best marketer of any entity in sports.
• Both are dealing with angry fans for the first time.
• LeBron James fans are feeling betrayed by his actions.
• Apple fans feel betrayed by the iPhone 4, which stops working as a phone when you hold it in your hand.
• LeBron James held a crazy one-hour Decision event that mesmerized the media and the public.
• Apple often holds crazy keynote events that mesmerize the media and the public.
• There was unbelievably intense speculation leading up to the James decision. What will he do next?
• There is always intense speculation about what Apple will do next.
• James and his camp operated in total media silence.
• Apple’s standard operating procedure is to not talk to the media but to quietly encourage speculation.
• When angry iPhone 4 customers took to the Internet, Apple didn’t release a statement for some time — until putting out a finely tuned press release about a fix that played well in the media. The fix will admittedly not fix the reception problem, which is a physical product design issue.
• I dont expect to hear anything from James about his angry fans for at least a few days. Then, he’ll make a carefully rehearsed statement that won’t make them feel any better.

Lebron James and Apple: how will they respond to the angriest consumers they’ve ever had. (Sports fans are consumers, after all.)