More Wattage Needed : Olympic Runner’s Commercial Power Would Get Boost From American TV

Every so often, a television commercial comes along, strikes a responsive chord and becomes part of the popular culture. “Where’s the beef?” “Bo knows.” “Tastes great, less filling.”

There is such a commercial now appearing in several European countries featuring track and field’s Olympic gold medalist in the 400 meters, Quincy Watts, the former USC sprinter who lives in Calabasas.

Set to an aria and titled “Don Quincy,” the commercial opens with a Viking king offering his wife, opera’s stereotypical fat lady, to Watts in exchange for his Nikes.

“The super-cushioned wife for your super-cushioned Air MAX shoes,” the king sings.

Watts takes one glance at the healthy lass with the long, yellow Brunhilde pigtails and begins running as if he were back on the homestretch at Barcelona.

“No grazie ,” he sings, his voice dubbed with that of a Pavarottiesque opera singer.

As Watts disappears off camera, the jilted diva shrieks, “Quin--cy!”

It is that last line that has caught on with television audiences and transformed Watts from just another gold medalist into someone with whom almost everyone in Europe is on a first-name basis.

“European promoters tell me that every time his name is announced over the public-address system during meets this summer, the fans in the stands are going to respond, ‘Quin--cy!’ ” said Watts’ manager, Roger Lipkis of Woodland Hills.

That, however, is not likely to be the response from the crowd Saturday in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays at Walnut, where Watts, known simply as “Q” to his friends, will appear in the open 200 meters and the 400- and 1,600-meter relays, because the commercial is not appearing on U.S. television.

Nike’s media coordinator, Keith Peters, explained in detail the reasons that is not expected to change. But the bottom line concerns Q’s Q-rating, the number used by advertising gurus on Madison Avenue to gauge the visibility of a potential product spokesman or spokeswoman. Watts’ rating is so low in the United States that it barely registers. The most famous Quincy here is still a television medical examiner.

“I don’t think, with all due respect because no one appreciates Quincy’s athletic ability and accomplishments more than I do, that he is very well known in the United States,” Peters said from Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore.

That puts Watts with some excellent company. One of the other opera spots created by the Amsterdam office of Nike’s ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy, which also produced the “Bo Knows” and “Mike and Spike” campaigns, features Ukrainian pole vaulter Sergei Bubka, who has set 34 world records. Neither is that commercial, titled “The Magic Shoe,” appearing in the United States.

The only one that is, “The Barkley of Seville,” stars a certain Phoenix basketball player.

“It was a long time before we used Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan in our European advertising for the same reasons that we’re not using Quincy and Sergei in the United States,” Peters said. “But, now, the basketball thing worldwide is so phenomenal.”

One reason basketball has become more popular in Europe is the increased television exposure of its players, and Peters said Nike has considered whether showing the Watts and Bubka commercials in the United States would increase their visibility, thus making them more valuable to the company as spokesmen.

For that reason, Peters said, there is some chance Nike will revise its marketing strategy.

That might give a much-needed boost in the United States to track and field, whose popularity with television audiences, according to Nielsen ratings, fell below that of other Olympic sports, such as figure skating, gymnastics and swimming, in 1992.

NBC announced last week that there is so little interest among advertisers in this summer’s outdoor World Championships at Stuttgart, Germany, that the meet, for the first time, will not be televised in the United States. In contrast, the European Broadcasting Union paid $91 million for rights to the 1993 and ’95 World Championships.

“We’re hoping Nike will change its mind about Quincy’s commercial because, obviously, that will help his name recognition here,” Lipkis said.

“He could be a real star of the future. He’s not only a great athlete, but he looks like a great athlete. He photographs well. If you don’t think that’s important, look at Flo-Jo (Florence Griffith Joyner). Part of the reason for her success commercially was her look.

“Of course, she also did great things on the track, and we’re expecting even greater things from Quincy than he’s already achieved.”

How much greater?

In winning the Olympic gold medal last summer, Watts ran the second-fastest 400 ever, 43.50 seconds, behind only Butch Reynolds’ world-record time in 1988 of 43.29. After a workout one afternoon this week at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, Watts, 22, said his goal this year is to become the first man to break 43 seconds.

“Between 42.7 and 42.9 is definitely within my range,” he said confidently, not cockily.

Because most U.S. outdoor meets are early in the season, serving the role of spring training for the sport, Watts probably will reach his peak this summer on the longer and more lucrative European circuit, on which he was one of the more popular performers even before his commercial.

Triple jumper Willie Banks once equated U.S. track and field performers to their compatriots in jazz and blues, virtually unknown at home but stars in Europe. Watts said he was amazed last summer, his first in Europe, to discover how true that is.

“You get mobbed by fans everywhere you go,” he said. “I tried to describe it to my friends and family, but they will have to see it to believe it.

“I don’t know if track and field will ever reach that level in the United States, especially in non-Olympic years, but I think it can grow with some of the young people coming up. If we work with the media and sponsors to give the sport exposure, it’s got a chance to be big again.”

The sport’s day isn’t over until the fat lady sings.