Note: This article appears in the July 12th issue of The Paper.

Over the past few weeks the good people at ESPN have started to broadcast a segment on SportsCenter titled “Who’s Now,” a bracket-style competition that matches up athletes of today against each other to determine who is, for lack of a better term, the hottest.

The matchups that the people at ESPN have provided have been intriguing and in some cases, out there. There was the battle of baseball’s most hated superstar (A-Rod) against football’s most hated superstar (Terrell Owens). Then there was the battle of America’s “Golden-Boy,” Peyton Manning, matched up against swimmer and Playboy’s July cover girl, Amanda Beard. Oh, and don’t forget about everyone’s favorite NASCAR driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., in a one-on-one virtual cage match with UFC superstar Chuck Liddell.

And as interesting and thought provoking as most of these matchups are, the real battle of who is the most “now” among athletes really comes down to two: a Tiger and a King.

That’s right, Tiger Woods and LeBron James should, and more than likely will face off when ESPN’s “Who’s Now” segment finally comes to a conclusion sometime later this summer.

While everyone else in the competition is certainly worthy of being considered the “most now,” Tiger and LeBron are really the only two who are worldwide superstars — in sports, business and entertainment. In the words of my man Jay-Z, Tiger and LeBron aren’t businessmen, they are a business, man.

At just 31 years old, Tiger already has won 57 times on the PGA Tour, with 12 of those wins coming in major tournaments. In his 10 years on tour (not including this year), he has made more than $81 million in prize winnings, and last year he became the first athlete to gross $100 million in one year (thanks in large part to endorsement deals with Nike, Buick and American Express, to name a few).

When not playing golf, you can find Tiger spending time on his 90-foot yacht, with his beautiful Swedish model/nanny of a wife, Elin, who just gave birth to their first child, Sam Alexis, in June.

Aside from running his own nonprofit organization (the Tiger Woods Foundation), Woods now sponsors his very own stop on the PGA Tour (this past weekend’s AT&T National hosted by Tiger Woods).

Yeah, you could say life for Mr. Tiger Woods is pretty good.

On the other hand you have LeBron James: the man of the many faces of “The LeBrons” Nike campaign, who single-handedly guided the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first ever NBA Finals appearance this year and who, at just 22 years old, placed 48th on this year’s Forbes magazine’s list of Top 100 celebrities (Woods was second, only to Oprah Winfrey).

Self-proclaimed as King James, LeBron pulls in a little more then $27 million a year from salary and his many endorsements (some of which are Nike and Sprite) and has plans to build a 35,000-square-foot home with a bowling alley, a barbershop and a casino inside.

James also has said that he has aspirations to become the first ever billionaire athlete and has befriended self-made, 76-year-old billionaire Warren Buffett to show him the way.

With all that in mind, it’s hard to say which athlete, Tiger or LeBron, is “more now.” Success wise, you have to give the edge to Tiger, who has made more money and has had more success in his sport than James. But then again, Tiger is nearly 10 years older than LeBron.

That’s why I think LeBron is more “now” than Tiger is, and why he ultimately will be named more “now” on ESPN. While Tiger has been more successful on and off his field of play up to this date, James is more apt to make an impact from here on out.

He’s more personable, marketable and in due time (with some help from the Cavs’ owners) will have success to the tune of multiple NBA championships.

Tiger of course is Tiger and will go down as the best golfer of all-time, but that’s not what we’re arguing. We’re arguing whose more “now,” and if I were a company or a team in search of someone to be the face of my franchise/business, I would want no one else but King James.