On the court, the GOAT conversation between Los Angeles Lakers star Lebron James and Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan remains interesting. Be it the comparison regarding their respective records in the NBA Finals or the number of their championship rings, everyone will surely have their own take regarding the never-ending debate.

However, if there is one aspect where James can undeniably be named as the GOAT, it will certainly be his off-court legacy. Michael Jordan has contributions of his own but it can never amount to what James was able to do, and is currently doing especially for the American society today.

The Ohio native has already grown an empire in the media industry where he has gained a huge number of following. In 2015, James's digital video company, Uninterrupted, raised $15.8 million from Warner Bros. Entertainment and Turner Sports to help expand the company's efforts to bring more athlete-created content to fans.

James and his business partner in Maverick Carter co-own production company SpringHill Entertainment, whose first work was the Lions Gate documentary More Than a Game, which was released in 2009 and chronicled his high school years. SpringHill also produced a handful of series including NBC game show The Wall, the Disney XD sports documentaries Becoming, Starz sitcom Survivor's Remorse, and animated web series The LeBrons. He is also currently the most followed basketball player on Instagram and ranked 31st in the all-time list of most-followed accounts in the platform with 74 million followers and counting.

He is being represented by agent Rich Paul of Klutch Sports which handles other notable players such as Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons, Draymond Green, Montrezl Harrell, Tristan Thompson, Lonzo Ball, Eric Bledsoe, and many more.

As a player, James is heavily involved in charitable works and is an active supporter of non-profit organizations including After-School All-Stars, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Children's Defense Fund.

He also has his own charity foundation named the LeBron James Family Foundation which is based in his hometown of Akron, Ohio. Since 2005, the foundation has held an annual bike-a-thon to raise money for various causes. In 2015, James announced a partnership with the University of Akron to provide scholarships for as many as 2,300 children beginning in 2021. In 2016, he donated $2.5 million to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture to support an exhibit on Muhammad Ali to give importance to the Black heritage and community in America.

In 2017, he received the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award from the NBA for his outstanding service and dedication to the community. In November of that same year, the Akron School Board approved the “I Promise School”, a public elementary school created in partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation to help struggling elementary school students stay in school which opened back in July of 2018. James later shared that it was the most important professional accomplishment of his life.

He is also unafraid to express his stance regarding various controversial issues that were found swirling around in society. These include the War in Darfur, the Trayvon Martin case, former Los Angeles Clippers team owner Donald Sterling's racist comments back in 2014, the Michael Brown verdict, and the death of Eric Garner. James also continues to show his support for NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in the aftermath of his participation in the national anthem protests, saying that he was being blackballed from having a new contract and that he would hire him if he owned a football team.

In August of 2020, James wore a modified ‘MAGA' (Make America Great Again) hat to call for the arrest of the police officers who were involved in the shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. On August 19, 2020, he announced his intentions to campaign for presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running-mate Kamala Harris ahead of the 2020 United States presidential election.

On August 27, LeBron James and his Lakers teammates as well as the Milwaukee Bucks among other teams began boycotting the 2020 NBA playoffs to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake. Following a players' committee to discuss the matter, James and others reached out to former U.S. President Barack Obama, who reportedly advised them to continue playing and finish the NBA season instead.

All of the aforementioned contributions were made while LeBron James is still playing in the NBA compared to Jordan who chose to be more involved with society after retirement. An exception would be his short stint with the Washington Wizards back in 2001 to 2003 where he donated his salary as a player to help with relief efforts for the victims of the September 11 attacks.

From 2001 to 2014, Jordan hosted an annual golf tournament, the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational, that raised money for various charities. In 2006, Jordan and his wife Juanita pledged $5 million to Chicago's Hales Franciscan High School. The Jordan Brand also made donations to Habitat for Humanity and a Louisiana branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation named Jordan it's Chief Wish Ambassador in 2008 where he has already raised more than $5 million for the Make-A-Wish Foundation as of 2019. In 2015, Jordan donated a settlement of undisclosed amount from a lawsuit against supermarkets that were accuesed of using his name without permission to 23 different charities located in Chicago.

Jordan funded two Novant Health Michael Jordan Family Clinics in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2017 by giving $7 million, the biggest donation he had made at the time. One year later, after Hurricane Florence ravaged parts of North Carolina, including his former hometown of Wilmington, Jordan donated $2 million to relief efforts. Outside of America, he also donated $1 million to aid the Bahamas' recovery following Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

On June 5, 2020, in the wake of the protests following the killing of George Floyd, Jordan and his brand announced in a joint statement that they will be donating $100 million over the next 10 years to organizations dedicated to “ensuring racial equality, social justice and greater access to education.”

The six-time champion also made his mark on the media industry where he played as himself in the 1996 film Space Jam which turned out to be a box office success, making $230 million worldwide.  In 2000, Jordan was the subject of an IMAX documentary about his career with the Chicago Bulls, especially the 1998 championship season, entitled Michael Jordan to the Max.

Two decades later, the same period of his life was covered in more personal detail by The Last Dance, a 10-part TV documentary which debuted on ESPN in April and May of 2020. The Last Dance relied heavily on an estimate 500 hours of candid film of Jordan's and his teammates' off-court activities which an NBA Entertainment crew had shot over the course of the 1997-98 NBA season for use in a documentary.

The project was delayed for many years because Jordan had not yet given his permission for the footage to be used. It was reported that he finally allowed the crew to utilize the film during the day of the Cleveland Cavaliers' championship parade back in 2016.

Aside from serving as the majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets franchise, Jordan also invested in other sports outside of basketball. Since 2004, Jordan has owned Michael Jordan Motorsports, a professional closed-course motorcycle road racing team that competed with two Suzukis in the premier Superbike championship sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) until the end of the 2013 season.

On September 21, 2020, Jordan and NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin announced that they would be fielding a NASCAR team with Bubba Wallace driving which will be fielded come the 2021 season. The team's name was confirmed to be 23XI Racing and that the team's entry will bear Jordan's signature number 23.

On the court, the Bulls legend may still have the upper hand on the ongoing GOAT debate especially with LeBron James' playing career not seeing its end anytime soon. However, off the court, James was able to utilize the power of social media and his platform to establish a massive media empire and most importantly, to effectuate change especially to the youth and the Black community.

The most impressive aspect in his contributions was that he was able to do all these despite heading into his 18th campaign in the league where he should be focusing on putting the finishing touches on his basketball legacy instead. Regardless of how LeBron James' career will turn out to be, it is safe to say that he has already cemented a well-respected legacy enough for him to reach the coveted GOAT status off the field while also serving as a positive inspiration to millions of people around the world.