LeBron James gives a shout-out new Bears president & CEO Kevin Warren

LAKE FOREST – Whenever a team makes a major hire in their organization, there are going to be people who praise the move and others who do not.

That will be the case for Kevin Warren, the new Chicago Bears president and CEO, who was officially hired for the new position Thursday. But at least he knows there is one figure in sports who is in his corner as he takes on his new job.

Lakers superstar, four-time NBA MVP, and four-time league champion LeBron James took some time to give Warren a shout-out on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.

“Major S/O to my brother Kevin Warren on being name the President & CEO of the Chicago Bears! Amazing my guy! Best of luck,” said James on his Twitter account.

The NBA star, who grew up in Akron, is a big fan of Ohio State University athletics, so he became familiar with Kevin Warren during his work as Big Ten commissioner.

He was in that role starting in 2020 as he led the conference through the COVID-19 pandemic, the addition of USC and UCLA in 2024 along with the negotiation of a new broadcast contract for football and basketball.

Yet Warren built a lot of his sports executive resume in the National Football League, starting with the Rams from 1997-2000 as vice president of play programs, football legal counsel, and in his last year the vice president of football administration.

He moved onto the Lions in 2001 and was with that franchise the next three seasons as the senior vice president of business operations and general counsel.

Warren’s longest tenure was with the Vikings, where he was senior vice president of legal affairs and chief administrative officer from 2005-2014. Then in 2015, he became the Vikings’ chief operation officer, which he held through 2019.

He was instrumental in the effort to help the team build US Bank Stadium, which opened in 2016 to replace the aging Metrodome in Minneapolis.