Jordanization

Both had fathers who played their sports professionally. Both had amateur sports successes in their own rights. Both achieved celebrity status early on – not only due to their family background but also from their status as prodigies in their respective sports. Both ostentatiously flaunted their celebrity status in high school, one by driving a Porsche and the other by taking Brandy to prom (the singer – had I meant the drink this would not at all been unique). After high school, both immediately became professional athletes, thus fulfilling the obvious teleos set forth before them by their privileged backgrounds. And by privilege, it should be noted that the advantages provided by their professional fathers were not merely limited to superior genetic endowment, increased economic support, or favorable social status. Such privilege also includes the training and insight, both formal and informal, that comes from being able to grow up in proximity to a professional athlete. Being raised with such privileges clearly tainted both players’ attitudes and augmented both players’ self-evaluations – as is evidenced not only by their love of the limelight at an early age, but also by the fact that both athletes would demolish their status as teammates by making trade demands.

Yet despite these similarities in background, the public perceptions of each player could not be more different. The first, Ken Griffey Jr., was affectionately nicknamed by the media as the kid. The second, Kobe Bryant, was scornfully nicknamed by himself as black mamba. Griffey was loved for his fun style of play. Kobe was accused of playing for himself. And in short, Griffey was seen as the Jordan of his sport, while Kobe was just seen as his sports’ latest Jordan impersonator.

Obviously, the personality differences between the two made a huge difference in the disparity between their perceptions. Griffey is affable, kind, quiet, and ultimately fun-loving and likable. Kobe is aggressive, motivated, curt, competitively, and ultimately out for himself, or his legacy. And while Griffey suffered injury after injury that further enhanced our sympathy for the Kid, Black Mamba exacerbated our villainous expectations by finding himself in Eagle, Colorado.

Yet perhaps there are two other explanations for their divergent public appearances: the sport they play, and their position in their sport’s history.

First, their separate sports: Because there are fewer opportunities to truly make an impact within a baseball game, it can be a lot harder for selfishness or entitlement to affect the sport’s joint outcomes, such as games or entire playoff series. Such mentalities are isolated within single at bats. Obviously, group atmospheres such as the dugout, the clubhouse, and the steroid bar still exist. And there are plenty of baseball players who contaminated teams via these group settings (Reggie Jackson, A-Rod, Manny Ramirez, and actually even Griffey himself once he developed an addiction to napping).

Secondly, and more specifically, the separate histories of the sports, and these sports’ relationships to the market, are more likely to have shaped these players’ different perceptions. Griffey did not have to follow in Jordan's footsteps, and thereby avoided being compared to him after every move – something that ultimately brought Kobe a lot of criticism (despite how much he himself invited these comparisons). Obviously the comparison between Jordan and Griffey fails miserably when both players’ accomplishments are considered. Even before he was injured, Griffey failed to play in many meaningful games and was overshadowed during his prime by not just one, but two other players in his sport (and if Griffey truly was not using PEDs, then it is even more tragic that Griffey had to play in McGwire and Sosa’s PED shadow).

Yet in a marketing sense, the Griffey and Jordan comparisons appear more favorable. At the time, Griffey’s presence in advertising was practically as salient as Jordan’s was. Nike launched the Air Griffey’s to supplement to the Air Jordan’s. Just as Jordan had Gatorade, Griffey had Pepsi. And last but not least, Super Nintendo released Ken Griffey Jr.’s Winning Run*.

So why did Griffey’s market presence resemble Jordan? And why is that efforts for Kobe to supplant Jordan never succeeded? Jordan was not the first athlete to capitalize on and cultivate his success as marketing power, but he was the first in the modern area to reach across multiple platforms and achieve widespread success. His ubiquity represented a new model, what Ritzer terms McDonaldization, which was brought about through a competitive adaptation forged by market forces, a process DiMaggio and Powell define as institutional isomorphism.

According to DiMaggio and Powell, institution isomorphism is the process by which organizations in a common field come to resemble one another. This can occur through coercive, normative, or mimetic forces. Coercive forces are enforced from outside influences in society, such as cultural expectations. Normative forces result from professions who consider certain pathways of behavior to produce legitimatization and hence accreditation. Mimetic forces refer to how uncertainties in the market force behaviors to resemble the safest, surest bet.

Jordan’s success as a marketing figure created cultural expectations for how Griffey ought to be branded (coercive forces). When Griffey reached his prime athletically and charismatically, Jordan’s success provided an obvious, proven, passageway for channeling Griffey into a market force (normative forces). Jordan’s pathway of widespread exposure offered not only a path for Griffey’s brand to be legitimatized, but also the safest bet against the market (mimetic forces). Hence, institutional isomorphism helps explain why Griffey’s status in the market caused him to resemble Jordan.

This endpoint for both Jordan and Griffey is best understood with Ritzer’s theories of McDonaldization. McDonaldization, Ritzer notes, is a model of hyper efficiency, calculability, and control beyond that which is offered by traditional forms of bureaucracy (thus Ritzer supplements Max Weber’s bureaucracy). Jordan, and Griffey in his footsteps, thus became hyper organized and calculated, and controlled public business practices, working as corporate endorsement organizations.

The history of several markets suggests that there is a cost to being the second organization in a field that adopts the McDonaldization (or Jordanization) approach. For instance, Burger King is – obviously - following footsteps in McDonalds, and will always have a lower status for never quite being McDonalds. Conversely, USA Today keeps its arguable worth as a simply by being the first the adopt McDonaldization in its field. Additionally, being late to the market may be easier to overcome in some fields rather than other (Target is a notable exception to the oldest brand carrying the most status in a field), but Kobe was never going to live up to Jordan’s image, even before Eagle, Colorado.

Thus Kobe was perceived as Burger King while Griffey was seen as USA Today. Kobe not only had to live in Jordan’s shadow on the court, but in the market. And he never had a chance.

Notes and References

* It’s debatable whether or not their status as the face of the sport was thrust upon both Griffey and Jordan or if they cultivated their own statuses themselves. Likely, their commercial status was the result of both processes. Regardless, their ubiquity is more indicative of the process in which modern athletes are now marketed: as entertainers, and ultimately, as brands.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=caple_jim&id=5245433
http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Bryant/Bryant_bio.html
http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/org_theory/Scott_articles/dimag_powel.html
http://www.mcdonaldization.com/whatisit.shtml