MR. ROBINSON VS. AIR JORDAN : The Marketing Battle for Olympic Gold

AS ATHLETES AROUND THE WORLD READIED themselves last year for the Barcelona games, Nike was showing off its own offshore team in a whirlwind “Tour de Force” sweep through Europe. Nike’s hot media properties slam-dunked before screaming European crowds at stop after stop, and it was obvious that basketball mania is international.

Fans hardly seemed to care that the biggest name in the business, Michael Jordan, wasn’t available for Nike’s promotional tour. In Munich, for example, after weeks of radio ads and Nike’s plastering the city with posters, more than 10,000 people bought tickets for an exhibition basketball game featuring Nike’s other marquee stars, including Bulls forward Scottie Pippen and 76ers forward Charles Barkley.

As the fans filed into the arena, each one received a Tour de Force T-shirt. But the fanfare surrounding this giveaway was only a warm-up. The real marketing drive began after the game, when company officials ushered a local press contingent into a small stadium room. Amid well-stocked buffet tables, members of the media met the players promoting the “Force” collection of shoes and clothing.

Dressed in combinations of Nike jerseys and warm-up gear, Pippen and Barkley held center stage, talking mainly about basketball and the upcoming Olympics. Then Nike introduced its far less loquacious star endorser, San Antonio Spurs center David Robinson.

Celebrated by former Laker Coach Pat Riley as basketball’s next dominant force, “the player of the 1990s,” this Naval Academy graduate--nicknamed “The Admiral”--seemed uncomfortable with the hype. Ailing from the flu and ever soft-spoken, he had been sitting quietly, allowing Barkley to dominate the proceedings.

But even though he was willing to sit in the shadows, ramrod straight as a midshipman, he quickly showed why Madison Avenue is gravitating toward him: He’s a witty, childlike charmer with a fetching innocence and magnetic smile that has Wheaties-box potential. His above-reproach aura and air of accessibility have already made him a hit in Nike’s “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” TV campaign. As those spots reveal, he can laugh at himself.

“What’s your relationship with (tennis star) Steffi Graf? Are you two romantically involved?” asks a German reporter, alluding to reports that the strait-laced Robinson was seen cavorting with Graf in San Antonio last year.

Robinson is not caught flat-footed. “Sure, Steffi and I are good friends,” says the 25-year-old Robinson. “We’re both athletes. We have a lot in common, and a lot to talk about. Art, music, cars, sports. . . . But that’s it. And by the way, I’m getting married soon.”

His quick, good-natured reply immediately scores. There are no more Steffi-related questions, just basketball talk, focused on the Barcelona games. The Admiral sings Nike’s praises at this Munich promo, charming reporters with his soft, easy sell. That’s certainly to Nike’s liking. So is the crowd of German youngsters, noses pressed against a glass partition, waiting patiently outside in the hall, hoping he’ll sign autographs.

Nike has promotional ties to six of the 10 U.S. team members, but is focusing its TV ad blitz on Germany, where in a series of commercials, the low-key, 7-1 Robinson has been entrusted to promote the Air Command Force basketball shoe. Attesting to his place in Nike’s lineup, this sneaker is one of the most expensive shoes in the Nike collection.

Like producers of a Broadway-bound show, Nike has been testing its new campaign and its featured performer. At stake is not only Nike’s entree into the European athletic footwear market, a sales arena worth billions of dollars, but also the next move in a worldwide marketing strategy that has rocketed NBA players into the highest echelons of the product-endorsement field.

By spending $140 million a year on U.S. marketing--and perhaps an additional $50 million worldwide this Olympics year--Nike creates instant celebrities. Its pre-Olympic campaign has elevated a new generation of fresh faces--and made David Robinson the heir apparent to Jordan. The only uncertainty is whether this mild-mannered figure has the desire and grit to go one-on-one with Jordan, Barkley, Pippen, et al., in a bruising war for advertising dollars.

Jordan, 29, remains Nike’s nonpareil franchise, an ever-luminous defier of gravity with off-the-charts marketing clout, but there are rumblings of discontent in Nike’s boardrooms. While they won’t say publicly that Jordan is flirting with overexposure because of his numerous commercials, some high-ranking officials at Nike--and some Madison Avenue execs--are beginning to think that way.

And Robinson’s backers are primed to take advantage of this opening. They know the fight will be tough one; there is no love lost between the two rival camps in this battle for big money.

THIS HIGH-STAKES CONTEST HAS ITS ROOTS IN A REMARKABLE transformation in the game of professional basketball. As recently as the early 1980s, the sport was in disgrace. Many advertisers saw the NBA as a drug-infested, too-black league with dwarfish Nielsen ratings. Major corporations wanted no part of this game. A Magic Johnson or a James Worthy might sign a low five-figure sneaker deal, but that was it. Sponsors felt the NBA and its black stars had little value in pitching colas and cornflakes to Middle America.

“Basketball players were invisible. We were frozen out of the action because companies felt we were all cocaine addicts,” says one former Laker, who asked not to identified. “A guy could keep scoring 25 points a game, yet he’d only get a few crumbs from a shoe deal.”

Then came David Stern. Installed as NBA commissioner in 1984, Stern paved the way for an effective drug policy that promoted rehabilitation, not humiliation, a move that whittled away at the league’s image as a drug haven. At the same time, this wily lawyer transformed the league from a sports package into an entertainment product.

He brought men in chicken suits to the courts to stir up the crowds and exploited the flash of the game with slam-dunk contests that let the stars show off. Soon corporate sponsors were eager to join the fun. Gatorade signed on to underwrite some of those slam-dunk competitions, and made this prelude to the NBA All-Star Game a TV staple. Stern even milked the dubious drama of the lottery draft system, finding sponsors to pick up the TV tab as staid club GMs pull cards out of a fishbowl to determine which team gets the best collegiate players.

Once Stern had set the marketing wheels in motion, two other critical forces coalesced, a partnership that firmly induced corporate America to hook up with basketball.

This fateful nexus stars Michael Jordan. A college phenom at the University of North Carolina, he had already hit “The Shot” that won the Tar Heels the NCAA championship in 1982. After following up those heroics with a performance that led the U.S. team to a 1984 Olympic gold medal, the North Carolina native left college to turn pro with the Bulls. Then Nike decided to roll the dice, signing the still-untested pro to his own signature shoe contract, mainly because of his college heroics and radiant aura.

Nike had no choice but to gamble. Sales had stalled, inventories were a nightmare and archrival Reebok was grabbing increased market share. At a 1984 meeting to decide who should launch the company’s “Air” technology, “we put these names on a board, and it was essentially a crapshoot,” says a former Nike executive, who has remained close to the sports world. There was little money for market research, and “no one knew anything,” he says. “We had all of $2 million to play with, and there was a pretty lively debate on whether it should go to just one guy or to several. We finally decided to gamble the whole lot on Michael”--whose name had come up only after Nike’s marketing people had stumbled upon a stunning photo of the in-flight Jordan in Life magazine. The result: a $75 black-and-red sneaker named “Air Jordan.”

With a new star and a new shoe, the Beaverton, Ore.-based company tried a new strategy, a hip gambit that was calculated to make Air Jordans a controversial, hot-ticket item. A tactic to make basketball “cool.” Because the shoes violated an NBA rule against colored sneakers, the league banned them. The publicity instantly made the shoe a huge commercial success that scored $130 million in sales in its first 12 months.

Jordan was hot, and to exalt him as an even greater phenomenon, Nike used his winning personality in cutting-edge TV spots with Spike Lee. Those witty, offbeat “Do You Know, Do You Know” ads made Jordan a pop-culture icon, and struck gold for Nike. By 1990, Nike was the dominant force in basketball shoes. Once a lightweight company that sold only running shoes, it now totals $3 billion in yearly sales, with almost $600 million coming just from basketball sneakers. (Jordan’s products alone account for $200 million in sales.) This translates into a 50% share of the basketball shoe market, compared with Reebok’s 20%. Nike is outrunning the recession, with a record net income of $287 million for 1991.

“Michael sells shoes, so much so, he saved Nike,” insists Bob Carr, publisher of Inside Sporting Goods magazine. “He didn’t only sell his sub-brand at a time Reebok was coming on like crazy, he also had a spinoff impact. The fact that he was so identified with Nike helped them sell tennis shoes, clothing, everything. He brought the company an image tied to performance.”

Jordan’s golden touch did not go unnoticed. He signed contracts in the mid-1980s with McDonald’s and Wilson Sporting Goods, and because he was too busy to pitch for every other company that wanted in on this profitable connection, promo opportunities soon developed for other players. Pepsi and Kentucky Fried Chicken signed Magic Johnson. (He and Larry Bird of the Celtics also benefited from Jordan’s deal with Nike, as they renegotiated their earlier shoe deals with Converse). James Worthy, Isiah Thomas and others became corporate pitchmen.

Jordan’s marketing maneuvers clearly created opportunities for his own client, says Johnson’s agent, Lon Rosen. “If Michael got certain numbers I wanted the same. When we were dealing with KFC, we knew Michael had a very good deal with McDonald’s, and we used that as leverage.” Agent David Falk’s deals for Jordan “have certainly had a ripple impact,” says Rosen. “He’s upped the ante considerably.”

His appeal seems to transcend race, allaying old corporate fears about using blacks in prominent marketing roles. “Jordan moves product,” says Nova Lanktree, director of the Burns Sports Celebrity Service in Chicago, “and as a result, more blacks are now being featured by such companies as McDonald’s, Coke and Pepsi. White people are clearly reacting to black endorsers, and this is happening now because the NBA stars are truly exceptional. Their performance is really getting wide TV exposure.”

Today, Michael Jordan is still basketball’s supreme global attraction. And more than an incomparable acrobat, he’s also the Master of the Universe when it comes to amassing eight-figure endorsement and licensing deals. With 18 accounts, most notably Wheaties, Nike, McDonald’s and Gatorade, Jordan has become America’s, if not the world’s, most powerful huckster--a more coveted salesman than John Madden, Tommy Lasorda or even Bill Cosby.

YET WHISPERS OF DISCONTENT are surfacing among the ad executives who’ve boosted Jordan to this pinnacle and pinned their companies’ fortunes to his. Some Madison Avenue honchos now view him as just a hired gun, a perception that results largely from his decision last summer to drop Coca-Cola to work for Gatorade. “Coke didn’t use me as best they could,” says Jordan. “I wanted to be the focus, and that wasn’t in their plans.” And when Gatorade came along with what he calls “a hell of a long-term package”--$18 million over 10 years for being their only athlete spokesman--he jumped.

That left bad feelings all around. Sponsors are beginning to talk privately about conflicts of interest from working for both General Mills, which makes Wheaties, and for Quaker Oats, which owns Gatorade. Corporate America’s $25-million-a-year spokesman is becoming one of its most visible targets.

“I don’t care what Michael’s motive was, the smell of such a quick switch, of market saturation, is starting to filter through,” says ad consultant Martin Blackman, a matchmaker between advertisers and athletes for 25 years. “I would’ve had a proper mourning period before I had Michael changing drinks. This lessens credibility. There’s a definite danger now that Jordan is becoming overexposed.”

That’s an increasing concern. “Nike isn’t too happy with Michael’s pitching Hanes underwear”--Nike also sells T-shirts--”and all his damn endorsements,” says the former Nike official. “That overexposure, the constant selling, have really ruffled the feathers of top officials.”

The Jordan camp has heard the rumblings. Striding around his large office overlooking the Potomac, a suite befitting a man who represents basketball players with $250 million in contracts, Jordan’s agent, David Falk, says he plans to make his client scarcer. “We’re cutting back on Michael’s availability,” says Falk, chairman of Arlington, Va.-based ProServ Basketball and Football. “Our strategy for the 1990s is consolidation, anchor-relationships with equity that extend past his playing career.” Simply stated, Falk wants long-term equity deals--guaranteed minimum payments based on product sales. With Nike, for example, Jordan has a six-year, $15-million equity deal.

Jordan says he, too, wants to limit his selling activities. “Right now, I don’t have the time to be with my family, so I’m looking to scale back,” says Jordan. “I’m happy with what I have. I’m not trying to be the wealthiest athlete in the world. It might look that way, but I’m not. I’m not trying to grab everything I can.”

He adds that if overexposure is a problem, there is a straightforward solution: “Every company would rather have me selling their products and nothing else. I would do that if they could compensate me accordingly. If Nike wants me exclusively, then I’ll have to be paid more money.”

The sense that his every move is calculated to make money has begun to tarnish his once unassailable image. When Jordan took months to announce his willingness to play in the 1992 Olympics, the question naturally arose: Who owns Michael Jordan--Jordan or his sponsors?

“I wasn’t pressured at all,” Jordan says. “I know a company like Gatorade wants to use me worldwide for greater publicity. I’m sure all my sponsors wanted me to play in the Olympics. But it was my decision. No one pressured me.”

Some observers still feel that he agreed to play purely because of economic considerations. As one New York ad consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, insists, “Jordan is the NBA’s showcase, tied to the league’s expansion and that of all corporate sponsors. A lot of money is at stake here. No one could afford to have him sitting at home, not at a time all these entities want a greater international presence.”

Jordan’s power as a spokesman, and his presence as a role model for black America, has put his choice of sponsors under scrutiny. He only recently severed his relationship with the Illinois State Lottery, after complaints that he was promoting a type of gambling that preys on the poor. Even his ties to shoes have been criticized: Some condemn him for peddling expensive sneakers to impoverished black teen-agers.

“This activity is not leading to social change; it’s not changing anything for black city kids,” says Harry Edwards, a University of California sociology professor, who is black. “It’s a fantasy that these kids can grow up and be basketball players, getting rich by doing these endorsements. But all this visibility for top athletes is leading to these exaggerated expectations. That’s very detrimental.”

The increasing intensity of the spotlight has shown Jordan to be flawed--and human. In the recent bestseller “The Jordan Rules,” a chronicle of the Bulls’ 1991 championship written by Chicago Tribune reporter Sam Smith, Jordan is pictured as vindictive, selfish and obstinate, a manipulative egotist who demanded special treatment from management at the expense of his teammates.

And the sound of an ego at the peak of its power is sometimes less than appealing. Asked if he would accompany his Bulls teammates to visit President Bush at the White House, Jordan answers, “No way am I going. No one asked me if the date was convenient, so no way. It’s OK if the other guys go. But the White House is just like any other house. It’s just cleaner.”

AGAINST THE CREEPING SENSE that Jordan is somehow vulnerable and the inescapable impression that he seems to be everywhere, hustling everything from burgers to bubble gum, the newborn appeal of David Robinson is captivating corporations. Only three years in the NBA, this Navy reservist with 1300 SAT scores is building his own megabuck portfolio, singing the praises of Kellogg’s cereals, Casio electronics, Brock Candy and Franklin Sporting Goods. Now rumored to be Jordan’s replacement at Coca-Cola, he’s clearly on a collision course with Jordan to win the most prestigious deals.

Speaking about this brewing confrontation and his own aspirations before a recent game in Madison Square Garden, Robinson wouldn’t directly disparage Jordan’s widespread commercial activities, but he does make it clear that he will chart a far different course. “I’m just looking for a few quality relationships with marquee companies. I don’t want to get bogged down. The Nike thing has been very positive; it’s not a cheap sell-yourself thing. I’m not going to sell Hanes underwear. I want to give back something to kids and the community.”

Robinson’s agent, the studious-looking Jeff Austin, carefully positions him on the high road. Sitting in a small, muted office adorned with a few museum-bought Renoir posters, he hardly seems the type to battle Falk for heavyweight endorsement contracts. Unlike the frenetic, hard-boiled Falk, who refers to his battery of 30-odd basketball clients as a “minimarket of multinational corporations,” Austin shies away from big-ego blustering, and says of his prized client: “David is not looking to take over the world, to sell himself to the highest bidder. He doesn’t care what Jordan or others are getting. He’s looking for only quality affiliations. He doesn’t want his message diluted with clutter.”

That sounds good on paper, but Austin’s Washington-based agency, Advantage International, is intensely competitive with Falk’s ProServ. The two companies have been at war ever since Advantage International’s founders split from ProServ in 1983, and it is clear that Austin would like nothing better than to steer a rich endorsement contract away from Falk.

Austin does have his own firepower. Robinson, like Jordan, scores well on the “Performer/Q” index, which measures celebrities’ familiarity and appeal, and which sponsors study before casting commercials. Jordan’s 42 Q makes him the highest-rated athlete in the United States, but Robinson is gaining. Though a relatively fresh face, he registers a 30, a rating close to Magic Johnson’s 36 and Nolan Ryan’s 35. He has the fifth-highest athlete quotient overall. This degree of near-instant familiarity has made him the new darling of Nike.

“David is the future, the next hot TV advertising personality,” says Fred Schreyer, Nike’s director of sports marketing. “David is the consummate citizen, bright, articulate and best of all, in no way is he flirting with the ‘Refrigerator’ Perry syndrome of burnout, overexposure.” Equally appealing, Robinson was also a bargain. Until recently, Nike only paid him $250,000 a year.

His growing popularity, and that of Nike’s current crop of ad sensations--Bo Jackson, Pippen and Barkley--has sparked a competition to grab a larger slice of Jordan’s air time. And some would say it’s not always a clean fight on either side.

“The back-stabbing, the rumormongering, the Machiavellian nastiness is intense because basketball money is huge, five times greater than in football,” says L. A. attorney Leigh Steinberg, who represents 21 NFL quarterbacks, as well as New York Knicks guard Greg Anthony. “NBA players think they are at the center of a star galaxy, that they should be getting the big-moneyed endorsements Jordan attracts. This puts their agents under terrific pressure, so to produce Jordan-sized dollars, they become pure cutthroat. It’s not uncommon to see an agent trying to ruin a rival agent’s or player’s reputation.”

The skulduggery is so bad that one prominent agent is now trying to discredit Robinson by attacking his born-again Christianity, telling potential sponsors that his zealously held beliefs are “out of the mainstream.” But the attacks do not worry Robinson’s agent. “I have no knowledge of it,” Austin says. “(But) if anyone is doing it, they’re wasting their time. It won’t affect corporations one iota.”

Targeting Robinson is understandable. With his good looks, intelligence and potential to be the most dominant player in the league, he’s far more likely to attract endorsements than Barkley or Pippen. For Barkley is the Muhammad Ali of pro basketball, often spouting off and grating on people. He has spit at fans, had a brush with the law and disavowed much of his autobiography. And although Pippen has recently signed endorsement deals with AT&T;, Coca-Cola and Burger King, he, too, has his shortcomings, particularly his low-key personality.

This May, Robinson’s new shoe will debut, and Nike is already primed for another massive ad campaign. Austin’s negotiations with Coca-Cola also continue (he’s recently spurned deals with Nestle and Honey Nut Cheerios), and Madison Avenue experts generally agree that the “Admiral” has the All-American potential to knock Jordan off Wheaties’ boxes.

“David is a handsome, bright young guy who’s even more articulate than Jordan,” insists ad consultant Blackman. “Yet he must still lead the Spurs to a championship . . . show he’s a winner. Only then will he land the richest endorsements.”

WITH BROADCAST EXECUTIVES predicting that the Olympic basketball telecasts will be the most widely watched TV event in history, Robinson will have a rare opportunity to match skills and charisma on the court and TV screen with Jordan. If they and their teammates make the Olympics their personal stage, a new set of international superstars is likely to be born in the multimillion-dollar competition of image and imagination.

Jordan, of course, will continue to be a dominant marketing force through the Games. He’s already on the covers of dozens of foreign hoop publications (Europeans are also gobbling up his autographed merchandise), and his stature is expected to give Nike a decisive edge in dominating the sneaker market abroad, leading to a spinoff effect that sells all their wares.

Nike’s most recent adventurous TV spots show Jordan in full flight and mugging for the camera. And he has a new sidekick just in time for Nike’s European/Olympics ad blitz this summer: none other than America’s favorite rabbit, Bugs Bunny. Dubbed “Hare Jordan,” this Nike amusement is an animated free-for-all, pitting Bugs against a group of bullies in a gym, with Jordan coming to the sock! pow! rescue. It’s a “What’s up, Jock?” laugh-fest.

If the Chicago Bulls repeat as NBA champs, and Jordan continues to be a Baryshnikov, reinventing basketball artistry while avoiding any hint of scandal, Jordan’s place at the top seem secure. Falk, naturally, dismisses Robinson as a threat, emphasizing that “there’s a public reticence in accepting such a big man. He’s inaccessible. David’s a first-class guy, but I don’t think he’ll approach Magic or ever equal Michael.”

Still, Robinson is clearly basketball’s hottest young prospect, the new kid on the court who is shaping up as Jordan’s successor. The “Force” campaign has the potential to take him to new heights, and a standout Olympic performance could take him head to head with Jordan on Madison Avenue. In his Nike ads, he talks of “kicking some butt,” and he may wind up doing just that. But it’s still unclear whether this shy, devoutly religious midshipman has the stomach to wage such a fight, and to sell himself to Madison Avenue. Quick to reject deals that don’t suit his ideals of “what benefits the community,” he’s an enigmatic presence in the high-powered marketing game. One who impels us to stay tuned--and to watch the unfolding scramble for the real Olympic gold.