LeBron’s Decision to Change a City’s Future!

Written by: Tony Camarena
Tony@bars-tone.com

No matter who the lucky team is, the LeBron James sweepstakes might have changed sports marketing as we know it. Talk of the 2010 NBA free agency has been in sports news for the past few years. Never before has so much attention been drawn to the anticipation of an athlete’s decision. So much attention that NBA teams and their respective cities have hired marketing and advertising agencies to help set into motion different strategies to entice The King to come play on their court. I know it’s crazy; millions of dollars being spent to attempt to sway the decision of one person! It should be known that NBA anti-tampering rules prohibit teams outside of the player’s current team to make contact while the player is still under contract. In other words, these campaigns are being funded and created by third party interests- the cities and civic leaders themselves- and not the NBA teams.

Cleveland has the most to gain and the most to lose in the big jackpot. LeBron is their guy. To quote one of the campaigns, “He lives here, He plays here, He stays here.” Cleveland is a small market team who happened to be able to draft a local kid who became the biggest name in all of basketball. The Cleveland campaign is a somewhat small-town approach. As seen in this video on the “Positively Cleveland” (Cleveland’s Convention and Visitors Bureau) YouTube Channel, locals state that LeBron is more than a player, he is a local, and more or less belongs to Cleveland. That remains to be seen, but the morethanaplayer.org campaign states a compelling case.

New York’s approach has been to focus on non-basketball related issues to win LeBron’s favor. For lack of a better way to say this, the Knicks haven’t been good in years. The C’mon LeBron campaign was spear-headed by Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s marketing firm NYC and Co., brilliantly added to the official New York City tourism website to get the entire Big Apple involved in the push for basketball’s royal resident. This included video invitations from various high profile New Yorkers- Mayor Bloomberg himself and Iron Chef Mario Batali to name a couple. Senior Vice President of Team Marketing & Business Operations Scott O’Neil, said James would become a billionaire if he landed in New York, as reported by Ian O’Connor of ESPNNewYork.com. But who cares about money and the glitz and glamour of playing under one of sports biggest spotlights? He wants multiple championships, right?

Leo Burnett ad agency of Chicago, took a more direct, and let’s face it, a much more creative approach. On Monday LeBron received a package on his front doorstep. Inside [see image below] was a pair of the original Nike Jordan shoes with a couple of questions: “Can you live up to a legend ?” And, “Can you fill these shoes?”

King James was greeted on Tuesday morning with a set of seven empty championship ring boxes that represented “one more championship than Jordan won [in Chicago],” as reported in an article by Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, along with another question, “Can you fill these boxes?” Wednesday came and The King was presented with a mock Chicago Tribune ten years into the future which read, “Sweet Throne, Chicago: No. 7, It’s Officially King James’ Court.” And finally on Thursday (the official start of free agency) Leo Burnett sent James a copy of that day’s Akron Beacon Journal. Inside was a two paged ad that read, “LeBron, the fans of Chicago have a question for you, Can you cast a shadow this big?” And right beside the message, a slightly altered image of the Air Jordan logo that pretty much everyone across the globe could recognize. A risky call to turn Jordan’s incredible legacy into a challenge for LeBron. But who knows, maybe it just inspired him to take on those challenges in his own hometown of Cleveland.

So why are they doing all of this? Local Pride? Global Branding? The bottom line is that while this deal will make LeBron James a very rich young man, he is not the only one hoping to profit from this decision. According to Matthew Stiker, Chief Marketing Officer at San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau stated that “The reason these cities are all making such a big deal out of this is that Lebron’s decision will have an incredible financial impact on the city he chooses to play. Star power equates to higher ratings, which draws more attention to a destination, and also higher game attendance, which means more people coming into the city to eat at the restaurants, stay at the hotels, etc. Over time, the impact will certainly be in the millions of dollars.” Civic leaders are attempting to capitalize on this golden opportunity and have taken on a stronger foothold in the business of sports in order to realize an economic gain. However, even this point has been open to debate. Conflicting sports marketing studies from Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys of the University of Maryland and John K. Skoburg of the University of Illinois at Chicago differ on their opinion on the impact LeBron will make. Which leaves us with only one certainty- whoever signs LeBron will go quickly to the head of the title picture, which is something any city leader would be pleased to hear.

Note:
Here is a Fox TV clip from “Hot in Cleveland”

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