The King of Jerseys

On Wednesday, the NBA's official store, NBAStore.com, announced their statistics for selling replica jerseys over the course of the 2010-11 regular season. To what likely came as a surprise to some (myself included), the jersey of LeBron James overtook Kobe Bryant's jersey's long held position at the top of the selling charts.

Such news may seem surprising when considered in light of LeBron's semi-disastrous recent history in public relations, stemming from last July "The Decision" television special. Of course, when you consider that the last time LeBron had the highest selling jersey was his rookie year, perhaps you could make an argument his jersey-selling "success" is simply the result of the fact that one of the best active player's in the game changed not only his number, from 23 to 6, but team, from Cleveland to Miami. Such changes obviously rendered LeBron's previous Cleveland jerseys obsolete - especially when you consider how severe a change LeBron seemed to be making through The Decision, his Cleveland and Miami jerseys seem to almost represent more than just two different chapters in his career but almost two entirely different characters.

Perhaps the above factors are reasons enough to explain why the news of LeBron's successful jersey selling campaign was so well-traveled, especially beyond any business or marketing circles, but also into sports circles. The very fact that USA Today felt it was newsworthy is likely due to how LeBron's jersey success flies in the face of the general regard that he is generally regarded in a negative light.

However, I would argue that such news of jersey sales is just as vital to the modern, post-Jordan NBA as any sort of highlights from last night or playoffs seedings. Jordan made the business of selling so much part of today's game that having a sneaker deal and other merchandising success is now vital for any athlete in the NBA to be considered a successful investment. Granted, being a winner in the playoffs, on the stat sheet, on the highlight reel helps merchandise move into homes, so the relationship between success on the court and in the market are certainly confounding. To any cynic, let alone fan of the modern, hyper commercialized, overly capitalistic, sports climate, this opinion is hardly breaking new ground.

However, it is interesting how the NBA, like so many other businesses have made their business success part of their strategy for inciting further business success. It's not merely the obvious fact that the NBA aims to produce success in the market just as much if not even more than success in the game itself, but it's the fact that the NBA seems to be promoting the news of its business successes as reasons to illicit further additional market growth. Goldman and Papson explain how such forms of self-aware advertising have become the norm in today's marketing environment. They note how after World War Two, advertising experienced a boom as Americans had more time and resources to spend on goods and used more media that were susceptible to convincing how they should such time and resources. In 1970s, consumers complained of being manipulated by their daily inundations of being convinced to buy things, so in response advertisements became more realist and absurdist to mask the semblance of pandering. In the 1980s, market research showed that consumers complained that these ads had over-corrected, creating advertisements that were too ambiguous and messages that were fundamentally unclear. Thus, in 1990s, led by the firms Wieden & Kennedy, Chiat/Day, ads become self-aware, in order to provide consumers with the sense that ads were "bantering back" upon themselves to speak for consumers' severe disenchantment. These processes, Goldman and Papson argue, have created a climate in which modern advertisements straddle the line between “fetishized formulas and clever self-reflexivity.”

Though its unclear how much the NBA has pushed these jersey sales results into the news beyond simply making their statistics available to a clearly interested public, it is interesting case of a company becoming invested in making their business successes known to consumers in sales related markets and not just to their investors. It seems like the only plausible reason the NBA would want the public to know how many jerseys they sold is to advertise their own business success to convince consumers through a new, less overt, heavy-handed channel that their brand is worth consuming. At the very least, such a story is simply the NBA acknowledging the fact, within a "fetishized formula and clever self-reflexive" form that they are just as interested in selling jerseys and other merchandise that came to rise in the Jordan-era (and of course perhaps as a result of Jordan's success) as selling tickets; and that their success in selling more reason for them to sell you even more jerseys.

Sources:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j-37vWgiMkZMtPtP7WSUXahai0GQ?docId=CNG.887a901975c3f70a5f64f725a13a9937.2d1

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/04/surprise-lebron-james-passes-kobe-bryant-in-jersey-sales-miami-heat-los-angeles-lakers-boston-celtics-rajon-rondo-nba/1

Goldman, Robert & Papson, Stephen. "Advertising in the Age of Accelerated Meaning" 1996. In The Consumer Society Reader edited by Juliet B. Schor and Douglas B. Holt, p81-98. New York: The New Press, 2000.

Blake Griffin and Kia

Obviously most observers have described the final round of the 2011 NBA Dunk Contest was a clinic in product placement. Yet Blake Griffin's "choice" to include a KIA sports car in his final try in the 2011 NBA Dunk Contest also reveals an interesting facet of the NBA's status in the organizational field of the market. As defined by Scott and Davis, organizational fields consist of organizations with diverse types of organizations that share both cooperative and competitive relationships. The sheer cooperation of the NBA and KIA in producing such a commodity like the Dunk Contest says less about the NBA selling out and more about the modern codependence of organizations. Perhaps this example of organizational cooperation can be extrapolated beyond the Dunk Contest to other instances of what are commonly considered simple "product placements." As suggested by KIA's inclusion of Griffin's winning dunk in their subsequent marketing campaign, the modern advertising mode of product placement is likely more of an example of organizations increasingly inhabiting a common field: consumerism.

Sources:

http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2011/02/20/blake-griffin-jumps-kia-wins-slam-dunk-contest/

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5j1sgqurmGk-9He37BcWT-6femK5A?docId=6569146

Organizations and Organization. W. Richard Scott and Gerald F. Davis. p117-120. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Press, 2003.