They’re Fast-Breaking From Asian Tradition

Naomi Miki, a Japanese executive, and Kim Jung Hoon, a South Korean sixth-grader, are separated by more than three decades and the Sea of Japan. But they share a common obsession: Chicago Bull superstar Michael Jordan and the NBA.

A living testament to the league’s spectacular marketing success in Asia, Miki has, in the last two years, bought 50 pairs of Nike athletic shoes--all Jordan models costing $150 a pair or more--for himself, his wife and their 3-year-old son, Yusuke.

As Yusuke roams an NBA specialty store in Tokyo squealing, “Jordan! Jordan!” Miki says he has also bought at least 20 jerseys and a $1,600 leather Chicago Bulls jacket in his weekly outings here--and plans to take his whole family to Chicago next year to see his hero in action.

In Seoul, where Korean youth engage in what has become the hottest national sport with backboards set up alongside the Han River, schoolboy Kim can’t afford such pricey mementos. But his passion burns no less brightly.

With three of his buddies--outfitted with Nike shoes and basketballs--Kim says watching NBA games, trading NBA cards and poring over NBA-related magazines make up the undisputed social activity of Korean boys today.

“If you can’t talk about the NBA, you’re out of it,” he says.

With its bigger-than-life heroes, trendy fashion goods and fast-paced court action, the NBA has dazzled new fans from Seoul to Singapore as it takes on what officials regard as their greatest potential market in the world.

The NBA is more deeply rooted in Europe, but . . .

“If you look at the pure population numbers, growing economy and overall popularity of the game, clearly Asia has the most potential for us,” says Mary Reiling, vice president and marketing director of NBA Asia in Hong Kong.

Since opening the Hong Kong regional headquarters in 1993, the NBA decided to go “full steam in Asia” two years ago, and, expanding its staff from one to 10, has rapidly increased its broadcasting contracts, sponsorship agreements, consumer goods marketing and local sporting events, said Cheong Sau Ching, NBA spokeswoman in Hong Kong.

Already, Asia represents 30% of the NBA’s international revenues and is projected to grow by 20% annually. Japan is the oldest and largest market here, but officials are particularly targeting China, Korea and Taiwan. They have struck television deals in 25 Asian countries--with Sri Lanka’s 3.3 million TV households the latest addition.

NBA officials first fully realized the international appeal of their franchise during the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, when the “Dream Team” of Jordan, Magic Johnson and company received a frenzied reception that rivaled “the Beatles going to the States,” Cheong said. As the NBA expanded its global activities, it increased not only its own sales but love for the game.

The success was resoundingly confirmed in a marketing study on global teen culture last year. The survey of 25,000 youths, 15 to 18, in 41 countries found that basketball had displaced soccer as their favorite sport, played or watched by 71% of those questioned. Jordan was the world’s most widely recognized athlete. The Chicago Bulls’ logo ranked among the top 10 corporate symbols recognized by teens around the world.

The NBA’s rising popularity reflects the shared global culture now uniting youth around the world--a culture based on access to the mass media, avid consumerism and common tastes in entertainment, according to the Brainwaves Group, a consulting subsidiary of D’arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, a New York advertising agency.

“While past generations had only their indigenous culture in common, today’s teens hold dual passports both to their local cultures and to global popular culture,” said Elissa Moses, Brainwaves managing director. “Regardless of nationalities, today’s global teens want their Schwarzenegger movies, their Mariah Carey CDs, their NBA jerseys, their CK jeans and, of course, their MTV.”

Indeed, NBA fans tend to be younger--from elementary school students to thirtysomething office workers--whereas older Asian sports fans still tend to favor baseball and soccer, analysts here say.

The action of reverse dunks and blocked shots in basketball better suits the youthful media generation, as does the players’ bare-it-all expressiveness that can’t be hidden behind helmets, said Kim Young Jim of the newly established Korean Basketball League.

Basketball requires fewer people and smaller spaces than baseball and soccer--attributes that make the sport more suitable to crowded Asia and what Joseph Park, of Nike’s sports marketing division, called a growing individualism among Korean youth.

The NBA boom has also helped create a hybrid fashion, merging the baggy pants and T-shirts of hip-hop street culture with athletic shoes--preferably the Nike Air Max--now trendy among Asia’s youth.

In Seoul’s Itaewon shopping district, Japanese tourists recently thronged a Nike shop in search of Air Maxes--and are willing to pay as much as $400 for the most coveted brand, the 1995 green Air Max model. The Itaewon shop manager said some tourists have offered to buy out the entire store, but he limits purchases to two pairs per customer.

“They’re comfortable and trendy,” said Yuriko Sato, 24, a Japanese office worker shopping for Nikes in Seoul. “A lot of the popular idols, like [musician] Kimutaku, show up on TV wearing Nikes so that has really spread their popularity.”

Working in tandem with the NBA, Nike expects to double its sales in Korea--now its fifth-largest market in the world--to about $260 million annually over the next few years, Park said.

Japan is Nike’s largest market outside the United States. Reflecting the growing convergence of youth tastes around the world, NBA Japan spokesman Tomoyuki Nagata said the NBA-related goods are not adjusted for the Japanese market: “The fact has become clear that Japanese kids are interested in the same things as American kids.”

Most fans here say it was the reach of TV that drew them into the game. Japan was the first Asian country to begin televising NBA games in the 1980s, but expanded its coverage to ride the 1992 Barcelona boom. Last year, the NHK-TV satellite system began carrying 100 games annually.

“The first time I saw Michael Jordan on satellite TV two years ago, I was awe-struck,” said Miki, the 42-year-old Tokyo businessman. “It was the same basketball as in Japan, yet the level and speed were totally different. He was doing things unthinkable for normal humans. We can’t imitate this. That is what moved me the most.”

In Korea, the U.S. military network, AFKN, had long shown NBA games. But most Koreans began watching them when they hit the local networks about four years ago, Nike’s Park said.

As interest in the game has grown, so have business opportunities. New magazines designed around NBA news have cropped up, such as Rookie in Korea and Hoop in Japan. In one recent issue, Rookie readers learned about the NBA’s hottest rookies, its best dressers and American basketball slang: “Shaq’s last dunk was a rim rattler,” and “Dennis Rodman was talking trash to the other team.”

Non-basketball magazines, too, have found features on the game or its heroes are a sure-fire way to boost circulation. When Boom, a Japanese fashion magazine for young men, featured Jordan on its cover in 1993, circulation jumped 50,000 overnight, to 300,000. Since then, the magazine has offered special features on Jordan, athletic shoes and basketball.

In Tokyo’s trendy youth mecca of Shibuya, the World Sports Plaza began specializing in NBA trading cards two years ago--offering everything from Jordan’s 1986-87 rookie card for a cool $1,600 to a limited-edition card autographed by the superstar for $2,500.

“I don’t think the NBA cards will end up as a mere boom,” Plaza salesman Kazutaka Takizawa said. “The American culture of trading cards is taking root in Japan and more stores are selling them.”

Other indicators also show a steady growth of interest in the sport. The Japan Basketball Assn., a private organization of amateur players and fans, increased its membership to 1 million last year, from 820,000 in 1991 and only 149,000 in 1975.

The NBA, meanwhile, moved its biennial Japan games--the only place outside North America where regular-season games have been played--to the larger Tokyo Dome in 1996, where 40,000 seats were quickly sold out. The first games were played in the 9,000-seat Tokyo Metropolitan gym in 1990 and moved to the 14,000-seat Yokohama Arena for 1992 and 1994.

In Korea, the NBA’s three-on-three tournament last year attracted so many applicants that sponsors had to cap the number at 12,000 and shut down the registration after a few days. Previously, the tournament drew 9,000, Nike’s Park said.

“Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, [Penny] Hardaway and Grant Hill are all Korean heroes, and it seems as if the NBA is part of Korean culture,” Park said.

In Tokyo, NBA Japan’s Nagata says pretty much the same thing.

“For Japanese youth, the NBA has no relation to nationality or skin color,” he said. “They accept someone like Jordan as awesome, just like [Dodger pitcher Hideo] Nomo.”