So Much to Sell, Except the Game Itself

October 18, 1998

So Much to Sell, Except the Game Itself

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

The gleaming NBA Store opened a month ago on Fifth Avenue and 52d Street with little fanfare and no advertising but with logos on everything from bibs and $210 cashmere sweaters to $8,000 Waterford vases and $25,000 Breitling watches.

Over three levels connected by a 170-foot-long maple ramp, the sleekly designed store that owes more to slick designer emporiums like Salvatore Ferragamo and Liz Claiborne than Modell's symbolizes the sophisticated marketing that has made the National Basketball Association a potent global brand.

"It goes against every sensibility of the N.B.A. not to turn the store opening into as big an event as possible," said Rick Welts, the president of NBA Properties. "So we've depended on people finding us."

The N.B.A.'s sudden shyness derives from the uncertainty of a season already tainted by the owners' lockout of the players. All preseason games, and the first two weeks of the regular season, have been canceled. So the N.B.A. chose not to turn hypermarketing's klieg lights on a store stocked with $26 Barbie dolls and $2,400 leather jackets without an on-court product to sell.

As he browsed the lower level, Joel Zolodnek of Phoenix said, "I thought I'd be locked out of the store, but I guess revenues have to come in to the league somehow." The lockout has not deterred his desire for league goods despite his concerns about soaring salaries and greedy owners.

"I love the game, I love the environment of sports and I love to relate to it," said Zolodnek, a Brooklyn-born accountant. "But the N.B.A. will have its greatest marketing job ever if they don't play any games."

The lockout's length will determine the damage done to the N.B.A.-related business cultivated by retailers, sponsors and merchandise manufacturers, none of whom want to suffer the devastation wrought by the 1994-95 baseball strike.

"If the league isn't back by Christmas, we could lose 75 percent of our N.B.A. business," said Neil Hernberg, sports marketing manager of Pro Player, the apparel maker, which is just matching prestrike levels of baseball goods.

Retailers were already coping with a downturn in the sale of licensed merchandise such as T-shirts, caps, jackets and sweat shirts plus the prospect of Michael Jordan's retirement and the end of the Chicago Bulls' dynasty.

"The market is soft," said Steve Raab, vice president of marketing for Starter, the apparel maker. "Retailers are reducing and canceling orders."

Welts said retailers, and the makers of licensed merchandise, are suffering more so far than corporate sponsors like Coca-Cola, AT&T, and American Express.

Modell's has pared its N.B.A. orders by 75 percent. "We're stocking the basics, the marquee players," said Mitch Modell, the chain's president. "The N.B.A. business doesn't start for us for 30 days, but our space right now is totally converted to Yankee stores because Yankee sales are phenomenal."

Gatorade, a longtime sponsor, is not worried. Yet. Its league-related commercial campaign, starring Jordan, does not start until after the All-Star Game. "He was an equally appropriate vehicle whether he plays or not, whether there's a season or not," said P. J. Sinopoli, a spokeswoman for Gatorade.

Coca-Cola's Sprite brand is proceeding soon with its national contest, dubbed "The Sprite Salary Cap" promotion. It features the Detroit Pistons' Grant Hill and the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant.

The only change in the plan is to shift the advertising that would have run on N.B.A. games to other television programs. "The spots aren't dependent on games being played," said Scott Jacobson, a Coca-Cola spokesman.

And Fila and Reebok are not delaying the coming launches of new basketball shoes endorsed by Hill and Allen Iverson.

"We have a much leaner program to sell The Answer II than we did last year," said Dave Fogelson, a Reebok spokesman. "That may mean selling fewer shoes, but it will mean less inventory left over."

The GH5, Hill's $90 signature sneaker, will not be marketed on TNT and TBS's N.B.A. games, as planned, but in print advertising and a Web site.

"I guess I'm a little surprised we haven't been affected by the lockout," said Howe Burch, a senior vice president of Fila America, an N.B.A. sponsor.

The cancellation of the first two weeks of the N.B.A. season has meant canceling seven TNT and TBS games and replacing them with other programming.

Turner Sports, which carries games on TNT and TBS, will add unplayed games to its schedule when the lockout ends. NBC Sports must pay its full rights fee this season, but would get refunds over three seasons for unplayed games.

"The lockout probably won't be an issue for fans until Nov. 1, when they don't see what they expect to see," said Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports.

In the meantime, fans feeling deprived can venture to Fifth Avenue, for the $60 sculptures made of nuts and bolts, a $30,000 Bulls facsimile championship ring and $750 gold cuff links to soothe the angst of the delayed season.