Sosa’s Chances of Endorsement Superstardom Far From a Slam

Win, lose or draw in baseball’s down-to-the-wire home-run hitting contest, Chicago Cubs star Sammy Sosa will join the select group of athletes capable of turning on-the-field exploits into sports marketing gold.

Win: A beaming Sosa says, “This one’s for you, Mama” in a commercial for a long-distance telephone company.

“You’ve got to believe that, given the number of Hispanics who use [long-distance] to call home, that script is already written,” said Houston-based Latino marketing consultant Alex Lopez Negrete.

Lose: Sosa continues to build upon the modest marketing base he enjoys in Chicago, where he pitches burgers for local McDonald’s operators and has his portrait painted on a giant billboard for a local clothier.

Draw: Sosa teams with red-headed slugger Mark McGwire as the sports marketing world’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid--an international version of likable Miller Brewing Co. teammates Bubba “Tastes Great” Smith and Dick “Less Filling” Butkus.

“When boxer Carlos Palomino and former Dallas Cowboy kicker Efrem Herrera were added to the Miller Lite commercials, the company’s sales increased significantly,” said Rick Burton, director of the University of Oregon’s sports marketing program.

Sosa’s gracious response to the media storm generated by the season-long home-run derby seems to be bolstering his appeal to marketers. The Dominican Republic native thrives on competition, and Sosa’s post-home-run messages to Mom play well on Main Street.

Sosa also seems tailored for marketers chasing this country’s fast-growing Latino population. And he might find more work pitching products to beisbol fans in Mexico, Central American and the Caribbean.

“He could help with a pan-regional advertising approach . . . maybe the Spanish-language spokesman for a big cola company, because he’s regionally and culturally appropriate,” said Horacio Segal, a senior research associate with Belmont, Calif.-based Hispanic & Asian Marketing Communications Inc.

Hitting marketing home runs will demand the same level of talent and timing that Sosa has used to surpass the home-run record. Sosa will have to pick his marketing pitches as carefully.

Advertisers that market to Latinos are hungry for athletes such as Sosa and Oscar De La Hoya, the U.S.-born boxer of Mexican descent. But marketers say that Sosa, who speaks English with a foreign accent, might not click with mainstream advertisers who fear that he won’t be understood in a 30-second spot.

Bob Williams, president of Chicago-based Burns Sports Celebrity Service, cautions that advertisers generally prefer to follow social trends rather than setting them--meaning some companies might prefer to wait before turning to a foreign-born athlete.

Segal notes that advertisers now embrace black athletes like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Shaquille O’Neal. Sosa, he argues, will encounter resistance: “There’s the ghost in the back of people’s mind because he’s black, he’s Latino, he’s foreign.”

And, in the hard world of sports marketing, nice guys like Sosa don’t always finish first. Parents might want their kids to be just like Sammy, a team player known for his workmanlike approach to the game. But teens might prefer a flashier role model like De La Hoya--a handsome and articulate boxer who just made a guest appearance in a music video.

De La Hoya recently did ads for Levi’s jeans, Mennen deodorant, MCI and Univision. And he’s negotiating possible deals with a national fast-food restaurant chain and a shoe and apparel company.

In contrast, before a joint appearance with McGwire in a MasterCard commercial in August, Sosa’s only commercial breaks were local deals in Chicago.

That could change quickly. “The home-run derby is a great platform for Sosa and McGwire,” said Leonard Armato, De La Hoya’s Santa Monica-based agent. “Winning means a lot. If Sosa finishes second, that’s going to take a lot of steam out of it.”

Just as advertisers use NASCAR drivers to reach some consumers and rock stars to reach others, marketers hope to use a variety of singers, athletes and cultural figures to reach the nation’s burgeoning Latino population.

Marketers say Sosa could be strongest on the East Coast because it’s home to so many Caribbean and Central American immigrants. Californians, they add, might be more in tune with an athlete like De La Hoya because of his Mexican heritage. And the foreign-born Sosa might not play as well with “acculturated Hispanic teenagers who think, dream and play in English,” Negrete said.

But Negrete cautions that Latino athletes aren’t going to get rich solely from Spanish-language advertising. “Spanish-language advertising campaigns rarely get enough money to sign a hero or icon,” Negrete said. “The money isn’t there yet.”

And, Armato said, concentrating solely on Spanish-language marketing creates artificial limits. “Oscar won’t do anything unless it incorporates both English- and Spanish-language campaigns,” Armato said. “That’s important because Oscar has the potential to become the first athlete to be marketed across both cultures.”

Sosa’s marketing career could get a huge boost, Negrete said, if major league baseball turns Sosa into “the ‘poster boy’ for baseball. He’s already such a big deal, and that could really be the key to his getting big commercial contracts in mainstream media.”

Less certain, observers say, is how well Sosa’s fame will travel outside of the handful of countries where U.S. baseball stars are well-known.

“Even in a place like Mexico City, Sammy isn’t going to reach the heights that Michael Jordan reached in this country,” Negrete said. “He’s not going to be a blockbuster like a hugely successful soccer player would be.”