Kyrie Irving Trade confirms a surprising trend for NBA stars with Signature Shoes

With the blockbuster Kyrie Irving trade to the Boston Celtics now complete, I began to think about was how it could affect Kyrie’s signature shoe line with Nike. Irving’s stock has risen both on the court and off in the eyes of a basketball fan/consumer, thanks in large part to his performance in the 2016 playoffs and this championship winning shot.

While his former teammate LeBron James has dominated the shoe market since entering the league, Irving’s shoe like with Nike quietly gained a prominent following during the shoe’s early years because of its many colorway options/partnerships (Krispy Kreme below) and being one of the cheaper signature shoes ($120 on Nike.com).

The Kyrie shoe series’ sales have also showed that being the “sole star” of a team does not affect sales, given that James and Irving have been on the Cavaliers for three seasons now. The same can also been seen for Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, who even though they were both Golden State Warriors this past season, still were #3 and #4 in signature shoe sales respectively.

The NBA is now at a stage where the belief is that TWO star players (minimum) is required for a team to win a championship. This has led to movement amongst top players around the league, especially players with Signature Shoe deals, which would have been unheard of just a decade ago.

Look below at the Ten NBA Players with Signature Shoe lines with Nike/Jordan, adidas or Under Armour and how each player has or is rumored to be moving to a new team, just in the last two seasons! –

LeBron James – Nike – Cleveland Cavaliers (Rumored to leave in 2018)

Kevin Durant – Nike – Golden State Warriors (Left Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016)

Kyrie Irving – Nike – Boston Celtics (Traded from Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017)

Paul George – Nike – Oklahoma City Thunder (Traded from Indiana Pacers in 2017)

Carmelo Anthony – Jordan – New York Knicks (Currently Rumored to be on the Trading Block – Houston/Portland)

Chris Paul – Jordan – Houston Rockets (Traded from Los Angeles Clippers in 2017)

Derrick Rose – adidas – Cleveland Cavaliers (Left New York Knicks in 2017; Traded from Chicago Bulls in 2016)

Kobe Bryant – Nike – Retired last season (Los Angeles Lakers)

Damian Lillard – adidas – Portland Trail Blazers

James Harden – adidas – Houston Rockets

Stephen Curry – Under Armour – Golden State Warriors

This means that over half of the top NBA stars have had a new place to call home over the last couple seasons. That is not even counting the Signature Shoe lines of ANTA (Rajon Rondo, Sacramento to Chicago to New Orleans), Li-Ning (Dwayne Wade – Chicago from Miami) and Beta (Dwight Howard – Houston to Atlanta to Charlotte), respectively.

It is clear that the current shoe consumer does not care whether Signature Shoe lines are given to players that are the “clear leaders” of their team and carries the entire franchise to success. The only one from the list above that you can seriously consider this scenario for is Lillard, but unfortunately, his club is not good enough to reach the top-tier of the Western Conference right now. Perhaps Irving has such an opportunity, if he is considered the “leader” in Boston opposite of Gordon Hayward. The media and pundits say so, but we won’t know until the season starts in October!

Overall, I thought this was an interesting observation within the Sports Marketing segment, given that I wonder how these shoe companies will react in their marketing initiatives when such trades occur. For example, with Paul George traded to the Thunder, where he is clearly the second option behind Westbrook (signed with Jordan, but no signature shoe yet), how will this affect his PG1 shoe line and the company will advertise it compared to the Kyrie or LeBron lines?

The landscape of the NBA continues to change, but all of the movement by the league’s star players has not seemed to affect signature shoe sales in the way I would have thought. Now we shall see if the Kyrie shoe line separates from the rest of the pack, depending on how Irving performs in Green and White.

Thanks for reading!

The “Ceiling is the Roof” as the Jordan Brand Continues to Grow

With the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend in the books, we now have only 16 teams remaining to compete for the coveted national championship, starting this evening. Given the tournament’s enormous exposure, it not only represents a branding opportunity for the participating schools, but the apparel providers that outfit the programs on the court. Out of the 16 teams remaining, Nike once again dominates the market by outfitting 12 of those teams, with adidas and Under Armour both with 2 each.

However, within their 12-outfitted programs, two of the Nike schools on this list are underneath the company’s Jordan Brand, North Carolina (MJ’s alma mater) and Michigan (in their first season under the Jordan brand). The 2016 calendar year, along with the beginning of 2017, has been a year that has seen the Jordan brand expand beyond just the basketball court and seemingly looking to break away from being just another Nike in-brand.

Let’s start with the most recent and biggest move the brand has made in the last year… Moving into the sport of Football.

It began in July of 2015, when it was first announced that Michigan would not be renewing their apparel contract with adidas and were returning to the Nike brand that were partners with the Wolverines from 1994-2007. This was seen as a huge coup for Nike to take back such a prominent collegiate brand and excited the Wolverines’ fan base that were starting to question the adidas brand as the school’s “maize” began to become a much brighter yellow.

One month later, an announcement on Twitter rocked the Sports Business world as Michael Jordan himself announced that Michigan Football was going to feature the “Jumpman” logo once the Nike deal was in place on August 1, 2016. Before this announcement, the Jordan brand had not been appeared within any prominent sports setting other than a basketball court. Analysts began to ponder why Nike would make a move like this now with the Jordan brand? Could this be the beginning of an expanded use of the brand?

After the Michigan deal was announced, more and more Jordan brand deals began to come to fruition. Brazilian soccer/futbol star Neymar became the first player in the sport to partner with Jordan. In a sport that is dominated by two clothing brands and led by the sponsorships of Cristiano Ronaldo-Nike and Lionel Messi-adidas, this partnership could be considered the most notable non-Nike or non-adidas within the globally loved sport. The brand then celebrated the new partnership by releasing a special edition Brazil jersey, with the Jumpman logo emblazoned where the Nike swoosh would be.

                     

We also saw a bit of Jordan in Major League Baseball this year, specifically in the playoffs and on the feet of the Cubs breakout star Javier Baez. The picture below show Baez and his Air Jordan 1 baseball shoes, in Game 1 of the NLDS, where his solo homerun helped the Cubs to a 1-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants. For the remainder of the postseason, his flamboyant style of play and shoe choice became a talking point among league followers and furthered the Jordan brand’s reach across a sport other than basketball.

But back to the aforementioned Michigan deal, as once the football season began, the Jordan-Michigan partnership began to reap its benefits. The Jumpman logo featured prominently on the uniforms, sideline polos and equipment and of course, head coach Jim Harbaugh. Derek Jeter, the former New York Yankees shortstop and Jordan brand partner, had his “RE2PECT” sloganed shirts given to Wolverine players. MJ himself was the honorary captain of the Wolverines in the season opener.

The partnership was bringing an incredible amount of notoriety and publicity to the program in just the first few weeks. It even spawned another Nike in-house brand to enter the football market, when Lebron James and his “King 23” brand designed football cleats for Ohio State University before its encounter with Michigan, adding another wrinkle into the already contentious rivalry.

Now, with the success of partnering with their first football program, Jordan appears to be slowly looking into expanding further. Earlier this month, the brand announced that they would be partnering with his alma mater’s football program, North Carolina, confirming that the brand is looking to build on their success with Michigan. MJ joined UNC personnel and staff to make the announcement during halftime of the Duke-North Carolina game on March 4^th, the scene of his now infamous quote of “The Ceiling is the Roof”.

This is a move that indicates to the market that the Jordan brand is a rising star in the industry. The fact that Michael himself is involved with all of these announcements is a strong statement that he wants “Jumpman” to become as iconic as the Nike brand that launched it. His competitiveness and need to be the best shows me that he may intend on having his brand break out on its own, potentially adding a fourth competitor to the “Big Three” of Nike, adidas and Under Armour.

Now, with both Michigan and North Carolina in Sweet 16 matchups tonight and tomorrow, the Jordan brand will be front and center with two of the top stories in this year’s tournament. It is also a great excuse for CBS/TBS to talk about the brand’s expansion and growth this past year. Now just imagine if both of these schools make it to the Final Four…

I’m saying it… Kobe is my generation’s Jordan

Some of the links that includes more information about the topics discussed in this new podcast:

Kobe and Adidas – http://a.espncdn.com/nba/news/2002/0715/1405908.html
Miami ’14 Uniforms – http://news.nike.com/news/miami-hurricanes-unveil-new-nike-football-uniform-design-for-2014-season
Arizona State ’11 Brand Identity – https://asunow.asu.edu/content/asu-athletics-unveils-new-brand-identity-program
MLB Special Event Uniforms – http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2016/04/13/see-the-2016-mlb-special-event-uniforms/#518099613b24
MLB Special Event Uniforms – http://news.sportslogos.net/2016/04/13/mlb-unveils-300-new-looks-as-2016-specialty-uniforms-released/
Kings New Identity – http://www.nba.com/kings/NewLogo
Jazz New Identity – http://www.nba.com/jazz/newlook
Ben Simmons Update – http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources–ben-simmons-shifts-shoe-strategy-000608913.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma