ducks
10-21-2005, 12:54 PM
Sponsors blow call on NBA's dress
By Gil LeBreton
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
The best basketball player that I ever saw -- a fellow named Jordan -- used to dress like a Sunday preacher.
Didn't seem to hurt him or his bank account, but what do I know? I'm a middle-aged white guy and, judging from the knee-jerk tripe that I've read and heard over the past two days, anything that I say about the NBA is influenced by decades of institutional racism.
Like the NBA commissioner, David Stern.
Here's a guy who has helped make millionaires of hundreds of young African-American males. But after he announced the league's impending new dress code this week, people are writing that Stern's true color is finally showing.
That's not fair. Stern isn't "The Man," but he apparently has The Man on speed dial on his cell phone.
As the most powerful commissioner in professional sport, Stern knows his constituency. He can read the handwriting on the tattoos.
At the same time, however, Stern has to also answer to the NBA's sponsors and marketing interests.
And while the league's network and cable television contracts won't expire until after the 2007-08 season, Stern can't afford to have purported "image concerns" muddy what last time sold for $4.6 billion.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave a hint of that Wednesday when he suggested that Stern had acted only after receiving scattered entreaties from people who were concerned about the league's image.
Cuban is right. Those are the misguided ones who fear the bling-bling and the throwback jersey, and they are no more enlightened than the people who watched Elvis shake his hips 40 years ago on The Ed Sullivan Show and cried that it was inspired by Satan.
But neither Stern nor his players can win this argument. When your sponsors are feeding a $4.6-billion rights package, the sponsors are always right. Even when they're dead wrong.
No, there is no constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to wear baggy jeans and a sideways ballcap. Companies have the right to tell their employees how to dress for work.
In most businesses, image matters. And if you don't like wearing the mouse ears, don't work for Disney.
Some people get it, though, and some don't. Michael Jordan, who unfailingly dressed off-court like a GQ cover, understood that his corporate underwriters at Nike, McDonald's and Hanes expected him to look his best.
Allen Iverson, on the other hand ... hard to say. Didn't he pick up his MVP award a couple of seasons ago while wearing a do-rag? At the same time, Iverson played college ball at Georgetown, where former coach John Thompson used to run the tightest, best-dressed ship in the land.
Iverson, the Olympian, will come around, because he's worldly enough to eventually realize that the purpose behind Stern's dress code is right.
In the meantime, can we back off the R-word? Not every rule that young black males don't agree with is racist. And not every middle-aged white guy thinks gold chains and Snoop Dogg are menaces to society.
Some critics were quick to remind Wednesday that coach Phil Jackson wasn't exactly a walking Brooks Brothers mannequin during his flower-power playing days. True, but ask a Jackson contemporary, Bill Walton, noted Grateful Dead fan, whether his rebel image cost him in endorsements.
Players -- and lately, even commissioners -- have always had to answer to The Man. Even when The Man is dead wrong.
Compounding the NBA problem is a generational one. Today's athletes -- college, pro, NBA, NFL -- don't think that society's laws and rules apply to them. You didn't have to be invited on a cruise with the Minnesota Vikings to know that.
Most athletes, however, comply. They obey stop signs because it makes sense.
You can't convince corporate America that baggy jeans and throwback jerseys are just a fad, a clothing choice. The sponsors will claim to have surveys that suggest otherwise.
In the end, Stern didn't have much choice. Instead of talking about the upcoming Mavericks opener, we're left wondering what Dirk Nowitzki will wear on the team plane.
Note to Dirk: When in doubt, go Jordan. It worked for him.
By Gil LeBreton
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
The best basketball player that I ever saw -- a fellow named Jordan -- used to dress like a Sunday preacher.
Didn't seem to hurt him or his bank account, but what do I know? I'm a middle-aged white guy and, judging from the knee-jerk tripe that I've read and heard over the past two days, anything that I say about the NBA is influenced by decades of institutional racism.
Like the NBA commissioner, David Stern.
Here's a guy who has helped make millionaires of hundreds of young African-American males. But after he announced the league's impending new dress code this week, people are writing that Stern's true color is finally showing.
That's not fair. Stern isn't "The Man," but he apparently has The Man on speed dial on his cell phone.
As the most powerful commissioner in professional sport, Stern knows his constituency. He can read the handwriting on the tattoos.
At the same time, however, Stern has to also answer to the NBA's sponsors and marketing interests.
And while the league's network and cable television contracts won't expire until after the 2007-08 season, Stern can't afford to have purported "image concerns" muddy what last time sold for $4.6 billion.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave a hint of that Wednesday when he suggested that Stern had acted only after receiving scattered entreaties from people who were concerned about the league's image.
Cuban is right. Those are the misguided ones who fear the bling-bling and the throwback jersey, and they are no more enlightened than the people who watched Elvis shake his hips 40 years ago on The Ed Sullivan Show and cried that it was inspired by Satan.
But neither Stern nor his players can win this argument. When your sponsors are feeding a $4.6-billion rights package, the sponsors are always right. Even when they're dead wrong.
No, there is no constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to wear baggy jeans and a sideways ballcap. Companies have the right to tell their employees how to dress for work.
In most businesses, image matters. And if you don't like wearing the mouse ears, don't work for Disney.
Some people get it, though, and some don't. Michael Jordan, who unfailingly dressed off-court like a GQ cover, understood that his corporate underwriters at Nike, McDonald's and Hanes expected him to look his best.
Allen Iverson, on the other hand ... hard to say. Didn't he pick up his MVP award a couple of seasons ago while wearing a do-rag? At the same time, Iverson played college ball at Georgetown, where former coach John Thompson used to run the tightest, best-dressed ship in the land.
Iverson, the Olympian, will come around, because he's worldly enough to eventually realize that the purpose behind Stern's dress code is right.
In the meantime, can we back off the R-word? Not every rule that young black males don't agree with is racist. And not every middle-aged white guy thinks gold chains and Snoop Dogg are menaces to society.
Some critics were quick to remind Wednesday that coach Phil Jackson wasn't exactly a walking Brooks Brothers mannequin during his flower-power playing days. True, but ask a Jackson contemporary, Bill Walton, noted Grateful Dead fan, whether his rebel image cost him in endorsements.
Players -- and lately, even commissioners -- have always had to answer to The Man. Even when The Man is dead wrong.
Compounding the NBA problem is a generational one. Today's athletes -- college, pro, NBA, NFL -- don't think that society's laws and rules apply to them. You didn't have to be invited on a cruise with the Minnesota Vikings to know that.
Most athletes, however, comply. They obey stop signs because it makes sense.
You can't convince corporate America that baggy jeans and throwback jerseys are just a fad, a clothing choice. The sponsors will claim to have surveys that suggest otherwise.
In the end, Stern didn't have much choice. Instead of talking about the upcoming Mavericks opener, we're left wondering what Dirk Nowitzki will wear on the team plane.
Note to Dirk: When in doubt, go Jordan. It worked for him.