Jordan

Sport

Nike plan to market Jordan as an icon

NIKE has been preparing

for years for the day when the man who helped sell SUS 2.6 bil lion ($A4.14 billion) in shoes would finally hang up his own.

Now that Michael Jordan has made his retirement official, the world’s largest ath letic shoe company is banking he still can fly, positioning his Aimess as an icon like Babe Ruth or Muhammed Ali, whose attraction goes beyond the game.

“It’s really time to stop marketing the basketball player and start marketing the

person,” Nike spokeswoman Vizhier

Mooney said after Jordan announced his retirement.

Plans are in the works to keep expand ing Jordan’s signature line of athletic shoes and clothing with the high-flying silhou ette logo rather than the swoosh by playing off Jordan’s charisma rather than his jumper.

“Jordan has become a bona fide brand and not just an endorsement,” said Nike chairman Phil Knight.

“I don’t think you’re going to see any thing like this for quite a while. This is something very, very special”.

Knight acknowledged he had mixed feelings about seeing Jordan retire, but denied an ESPN report that he visited Jordan in an attempt to talk him out of it.

“First of all, I know it wouldn’t do any good if I did try,” Knight said.

“Secondly, there is part of me, probably more than half, that is really kind of pleased that for him to go out the way he went out. It really befits the grace and dig nity with which he played”.

Knight said Jordan will be personally involved in product development, just as he’s been involved every step of the way since Nike signed him for a mere

Sussoo,Ooo ($A796,000) As An Nba

rookie in 1984.

It was a bargain, considering sales of Air Jordan shoes were SUSI3O million (SA2O7 million) in the first year.

They reached SUS3SO million ($A557 million) last year.

“If you took the Jordan brand out of Nike, it would still be number two basket ball company in the world next to Nike,”

Mooney said.

Overseas, Jordan has been compared to

such American exports as Coca-cola and Mickey Mouse, and is a huge star in places where basketball is barely even followed.

“The notion is that Jordan is obviously one of the few athletes who transcends sport,” said Josie Esquivel, an analyst with

Morgan Stanley in New York.

“He has this appeal that makes him a great ambassador for sports of any kind.

“The corporate executives certain ly believe that mantra, but I think you have a large number of people who Mmu believe that too”. y j|| The Jordan has taken a big jf hit / I 1993, when he quit basket- \ 1 ball nearly two seasons to try his hand at a / baseball career. f Basketball shoe \ sales slumped 30 per for Nike, but for the entire athletic shoe industry.

At the time, Jordan was even more valuable to Nike /

because his line represented a bigger slice of the revenue pie.

His shoes and apparel accounted for about SUS2BO million ($A445.8 million) in sales. This made up eight per cent of Nike’s revenue.

The SUS3SO mil lion ($A557 mil lion) in Air Jordan sales last year were less than four per cent of Nike’s overall revenue, which has more than doubled in five years to SUS 9.2 billion

($A14.6 billion).

Losing Jordan as an 82-game-a-year billboard couldn’t have come at a worse time for Nike.

The multi-million dollar company began the year with hopes of an Asian economic recov ery.

Nike had tightened its corporate belt

for the better part of last

year with falling profits,

layoffs and budget cuts across the board. ■