Uncommon Marketing : As NBA Looks Ahead to a Truly International League, What Better Salesman Is There Than Magic?

The French sent Lafayette to the United States. We sent Benjamin Franklin here. They gave us the Statue of Liberty. We sent them Pershing and Eisenhower. They gave us Dijon mustard and Perrier. We sent them . . .

Magic Johnson?

Yes, indeed. The Lakers have arrived, or as a headline in L’Equipe, the nation’s leading sports daily put it, “Ils Sont La!”

They are here!

Like Cortez and his conquistadors exploring a new world, the NBA is trying to counter-colonize Europe, choosing for this important mission its best-known smile.

NBA officials dream of a European conference but consider Paris, a hard sell, the linchpin of the continent. Thus, the league wanted either Johnson and the Lakers or the Bulls and Michael Jordan to crack this nut.

So far, the reception has been warm, if not overwhelming.

Entire editions of the myriad French basketball magazines have been given over to the McDonald’s Open. More than 275 media credentials have been issued to French outlets.

But an overheated press corps shouldn’t be equated with an actual folk movement.

The Lakers find, to their delight, that they can walk the streets unrecognized.

“This is one city we get to have nice long walks,” says Johnson, here with his new bride, Cookie.

“We don’t get to do that at home because everybody won’t let you do it. Here, at least, we get to walk and really enjoy one another. It takes us really like back to our college days.”

Says Sam Perkins: “It’s been cool.”

The two-day tournament is almost, but not quite, sold out.

On the other hand, when people figure out who the Lakers are, they go crazy. Tuesday, Johnson was taken to the Eiffel Tower in his uniform for the obligatory photo opportunity, amid the Japanese tour groups, sundry other visitors and the intense local photographers. The result was chaotic.

“It was ugly,” Laker publicist John Black said. “I almost punched two French photographers. It was a mob scene. There were probably 20 or so photographers and TV guys, pushing and shoving each other, and about 100, 200 fans trying to mob him for his autograph. It was like a big, ugly scene.”

Johnson, laughing, said it was “all for one and one for all.”

Another day in the battle for Europe.

TOMORROW, THE WORLD

We think global development is happening. But what we do, we’ll do slowly, quietly and build it up. Our growth at home didn’t happen overnight and it’s going to happen even more slowly around the world.

But happen, it will.

--NBA Commissioner David Stern

In a slick presentation at the recent league meetings in Palm Desert, Stern listed buzz words for the ‘90s: direct broadcast satellite . . . fiber optics . . . signal security . . . digital compression . . . HDTV .

His underlying message: after the tremendous growth of the ‘80s, the years of seemingly unlimited growth are over.

The league must now market more efficiently--and find new markets.

For the league, the McDonald’s Open is a low-risk, low-cost wedge that might even lead to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: an international league.

In this, the NBA has an advantage over the NFL and major league baseball, which are the two truly mass spectator sports at home.

Baseball is incomprehensible to much of the world. Football is a mystery. The NFL’s recent foray into Europe hit a merchandising jackpot in select venues such as Barcelona but lost $5 million overall.

Basketball is already played worldwide and gaining in popularity.

Plumbing interest in the Orient, Stern dispatched the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz to Tokyo for two games to open last season and plans to do it again in a year.

(Neither participant is as enthusiastic. Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan said the jet lag and ensuing bad start took half the season to overcome. He might have added, it almost got him fired.)

Stern, however, is considered a voice of caution. Within the NBA office, there are Young Turks doing informal studies on the viability of Paris as a basketball city, but the boss is in no hurry.

“Global development is a certainty--with or without us,” Stern says. “The pitfall we have to avoid is assuming that our way is the best way or the only way.

“We have to respect each other. We have to respect other league structures, other federations, other international bodies. That to me is the major pitfall that we’re striving mightily to avoid.”

Translation: Travel considerations are still important. The NBA could lay an egg overseas. And the European leagues, if challenged or angered, could start a bidding war that would cook the NBA’s golden goose.

Besides, the NBA has its coming Olympic publicity windfall. If the rest of the world has home-grown athletes who are ready to compete, we will know about it soon.

THE CONQUERORS

I don’t think there’s anything special about Americans. It has to do with the popularity of the game. Our kids start playing as soon as they can bounce the ball and reach the hoop. I think it’s a long way away, but the Europeans in particular have come pretty far. Our college teams used to destroy whatever their best was.

--NBA Deputy Commissioner

Russ Granik

Three reasons the world is catching up:

1. Zone defense--The greatest American advantage lies in the quickness of American players, which is largely negated by zones. They are illegal in the NBA but OK in the Olympics, and here.

2. Shooting--Europeans do that as well as Americans. In 1984, the Soviet Union made 81% of its free throws in a tournament here. That year, only one NBA team, the Celtics, did as well.

3. Three-pointers--Europeans play for the shot. Americans are conditioned not to look for it as much, or worry about opponents taking it as much. The three-point line in international play is the European distance, 20 feet 6 inches, rather than the NBA’s 23-9.

It is not only U.S. college players who are feeling the heat.

Two years ago in the McDonald’s Open in Rome, the Denver Nuggets had to break open a close game late to defeat Yugoslavia’s Jugolastika Split.

Last year in Barcelona, the Knicks’ Gerald Wilkins sank a 25-foot prayer at the buzzer to tie Italy’s Scavolini Pesaro. New York then won in overtime.

Noting that the Nuggets and Knicks were playing their exhibition openers in those games, the NBA made sure that the Lakers got in two exhibitions against the Celtics on the way here.

The Lakers aren’t worried, but . . .

“I think anybody who doesn’t worry about losing might lose,” Mike Dunleavy says.

“Yeah, I take it as possible we could lose. I try to prepare them for all the ways it could happen.

“If you don’t make shots and they make ‘em--they shoot a lot of threes and play zone. If they catch you on a bad day and they’re on a good day, they can win.”

Everyone has his own problems. Dunleavy wants to get his team home without incident. Stern wants to sell NBA software to the world. Johnson wants to show the world what its missing. In Paris, it’s Showtime.