During the majority of Hakeem's career, the scribes thought that Patrick Ewing and/or David Robinson were better players. And I'm sure the covers reflect that. How many Ewing/Robinson covers are there? Dave.
I think there were several reasons for that. Hakeem had a thick accent without the benefit of an interpretor. He was more serious than someone like Yao who is a pretty good quote. Hakeem played during the same time as the best player who ever lived and therefore B-Ball covers went mostly to Jordan. The Rockets were mediocre for years.
All those reasons above are true, but still -- 3 covers in well over a decade? What about the two years that MJ wasn't playing basketball? Wasn't there room for a couple covers then? No cover when the Rockets stormed out of the gate during the first championship year? I'm not saying Hakeem should have had 30 covers or 20 or even 10. Just that 3 is a really, really low number. That's all.
Here's the story: HEADLINE: Sky Rocket; With his forceful play and a smile that transcends language, Houston's 7'5" YAO MING has given the league a needed boost on two continents BYLINE: Jack McCallum BODY: As the Houston Rockets' Yao Ming looks around (actually, down) at his fellow All-Stars this weekend in Atlanta, he will see players with championship rings (Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan); players averaging double figures in both points and rebounds (Duncan, Shaq, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Jermaine O'Neal); players with hip sneaker commercials (Tracy McGrady); players with mad hops (Vince Carter), mop tops (Steve Nash), bad-ass Afros (Ben Wallace) and tattoos (Allen Iverson). Yao--he of the ringless fingers, modest stats (12.9 points and 8.2 rebounds per game through Sunday), limited vertical leap, stock Nikes, buzz cut and unadorned epidermis--would seem out of place. Yet in the high-stakes game of commercial chess that sometimes seems to matter most these days, the 7'5" rookie is the new king, the literal and figurative center of attention who bestrides two continents and makes hearts pound and cash registers ring in both. In terms of global appeal, "Yao will break all the rules," says Michael Denzel, managing director of the NBA's suddenly burgeoning Asia operation. Rich Thomaselli, who writes about sports business and marketing for Advertising Age, has a more disinterested though equally rosy view: "I don't see anything that can keep Yao from being a major, major force in the marketplace." Yes, in the eternal search for the It Guy, Yao is now, and as far as the NBA is concerned, he arrived none too soon. According to an SI poll (page 38), NBA fans' interest in the league is down, and though media hype might tell you otherwise, it is not high school hotshots such as LeBron James who are most likely to lead a revival. It is players like Yao. Witness the fans' strongly positive poll response to the influx of international players and the fact that the public installed Yao as a starter on the Western Conference All-Star team, ahead of no less imposing a figure than Shaq. This good feeling about foreigners would not have been likely several years ago, but it has become impossible to ignore the appeal of players such as Dallas Mavericks forward Nowitzki (Germany), Sacramento Kings forward Peja Stojakovic (Yugoslavia) and Memphis Grizzlies forward Pau Gasol (Spain). The internationals come into the NBA fundamentally sound and ready to play, dragging very little baggage from their homeland. That has certainly been true of Yao, whose adjustment period was expected to be long but who turned into a solid contributor almost immediately. In only his 10th game, against Dallas, he erupted for 30 points and 16 rebounds. The Rockets may have lost 103--90, but the buzz about the kid from China with the sweet touch had begun. It continued as Yao demonstrated that he could sustain his game, even embarrassing Shaq in the first quarter of their first meeting, on Jan. 17, with three quick baskets and three rejections of O'Neal shots. He also showed other endearing qualities: a flair for passing, a sense of humor, a winning smile--just the right image for companies seeking a novel but unthreatening pitchman. "Yao comes along at the perfect time to the perfect league," says Thomaselli. "The NBA has wanted exponential global growth. The other foreign players have helped, but Yao, who is truly unique because of his size, background and personality, will lead the way." He has already made a difference in Houston, where attendance at the Compaq Center is up some 2,000 a game, and elsewhere around the league, where the Rockets, who haven't been much of an attraction since their championship teams of 1993--94 and '94--95, are the seventh-leading draw (up from 18th last season). A large part of that jump is based on Yao's appeal not only to his fellow Chinese but to other Asians as well. Ethnicity of ticket buyers is a difficult trend to track, but the Rockets have done it by monitoring the racial makeup of their group sales. Last season less than 0.5% of group sales were to Asians; this year it's between 11% and 12%. Other teams in cities with large Asian populations, the Seattle SuperSonics and the Golden State Warriors, for example, have built ticket packages around Yao's appearances. When Houston played at Oakland on Nov. 27, the P.A. announcements were made in English and in Mandarin, and Yao delivered a videotaped message thanking fans for coming. Let's see if LeBron can have that kind of impact. Yao is the main reason that 12 regional channels in China televise NBA games--10 more than last season--in addition to the national CCTV network. This season 30 of the 120 broadcasts will feature Yao's Rockets. And the Asian market is not only going to watch, but it's also going to buy. "Asian and Asian-American consumers haven't plugged in to sneakers and sports apparel," says Thomaselli. "I could see a whole Yao line." Indeed, the first shipment of NBA-licensed duds is due to arrive in the Land of 1.3 Billion in April, with signature jerseys from a dozen or so of the usual suspects (Kobe, Shaq, Iverson) plus a Houston number 11 jersey that is expected to fly off the shelves. The league has long had a global vision that the other pro leagues lacked; now, at least in Asia, it has the main ingredient to help realize that vision. In endorsement income Yao is, naturally, far behind Jordan, who still commands about $ 30 million per year, but then, Ming is coming and Michael is going. (We think.) Exact figures on Yao's deals have not been made public, but according to informed sources, he will make at least $ 4 million as a pitchman this season, and within the next few years he could be raking in $ 10 million annually. At 22, Yao is already in that rare category of athletes who make more off-court than on. (An estimated 5% of his four-year, $ 18 million salary goes to the Chinese Basketball Association, which released him to play in Houston.) What Yao thinks of all this is hard to say. He has made almost no public comment about his sudden appeal and, lately, hasn't made many comments of any kind. Team Yao (five strategists who guide his career), the Rockets and Yao himself all felt he was stretching himself too thin with interviews, photo shoots and endorsement responsibilities, and access to him has been restricted. But it's clear that Yao has a big say in what he does and doesn't do off the court. "He doesn't drink, so you won't see him endorsing anything alcoholic," says marketing expert Bill Sanders, one member of Team Yao. "He's very technology-minded and made it clear he wants to pursue those opportunities. He won't be rushed into anything, because that's his nature. If we're patient and visionary, Yao could become a sports-marketing icon." Whoa, lots of buzzwords there. But the early corporate courtship of Yao has been eye-opening. There is Yao, one of only four active athletes featured in an ad on Super Bowl Sunday, smiling down at Mini-Me (actor Verne Troyer, from the Austin Powers movies) on behalf of Apple's new laptops. There is Yao having some fun with his name for Visa. Soon Yao will be pitching Gatorade; a major deal is about to be announced. In China, Yao will be hawking wireless service (for China Unicom) and games for mobile phones (on behalf of Sorrent, a San Mateo, Calif., company). On the Web, Yao will be at www.yaoming.net, accessible in both English and Mandarin, a site for purchasing Yao apparel and for joining the Yao Ming Fan Club. Could Yao be a supersized flavor of the month rather than a commercial evergreen? For all the wow surrounding Yao, there are potential stumbling blocks on his road to marketing immortality. First, top endorsers are generally recognized as being of championship caliber, be it in a team or an individual sport; the aging-cowboy appeal of Arnold Palmer, who earns an estimated $ 15 million per year from endorsements, would mean zilch were he not the onetime master of the realm. "For an athlete to move product in America, he either needs to perform extremely well or be recognized as the reason his team does," says Ray Clark, CEO of The Marketing Arm, a Dallas sports and marketing consulting firm that helped put together Yao's Apple deal. "Probably both." For all his potential, Yao is not yet a dominant center, even given the paucity of that breed. And while the Rockets are exciting--doubly so because quicksilver point guard Steve Francis plays yin to Yao's yang (or is it yang to Yao's yin?)--their advancing far into the postseason is no guarantee, locked as they are in the hellish Western Conference. Marketing experts agree that the earning power of the Toronto Raptors' Carter, the Minnesota Timberwolves' Garnett and the Orlando Magic's McGrady has been limited by team failures. Then, too, big men are often a tough sell, particularly in the shoe market, which historically has kicked NBA players into the endorsement stratosphere. Shaq's killer smile, which mitigates an on-court image of pure bullishness, has helped him shill successfully for Burger King, Nestle and Radio Shack, but the Big Willy Loman hasn't made as much of a splash for Starter shoes. Nike admits that of the big men who have been in its stable, only Garnett was a reliable shoe salesman--and he subsequently bolted for And 1. Nike is enthusiastic about Yao ("Nothing in my 12-month plan is more important than getting Yao signed," says Ralph Greene, the company's global director of basketball) but is not panting over him ("There's always a question of how promotional hype, which Yao has, translates to shoe sales," says Greene). The best guess is that Yao will be hard-pressed to get a seven-figure shoe contract. (The prospective value of LeBron James's first shoe deal has been estimated at $ 5 million per year, and Bryant's new deal may be worth three times that.) There is also the matter of Yao's ability to speak English. The Apple spot with Troyer capitalized on Yao's radiant smile, while Visa tried to mine Yo-Yao exchanges between Yao and employees and customers at a souvenir store. "But you can't use non-verbal ads forever," says Bob Williams, president of Burns Sports and Celebrities, an Evanston, Ill., company that links advertisers with athletes and celebrities. "Yao's success as an endorser will ultimately depend upon how well he masters the language." That might turn out to be a nonissue; though Yao generally speaks to large groups only with the help of his interpreter, Colin Pine, those close to him have heard him speak understandable English. Yao's ethnicity is the one thing that sets him apart from all other athlete-endorsers, large or small, center or guard, winning team or losing team. At the same time, the way he's handled himself--he's competitive without being combative--has kept him a popular figure in his homeland, where chest-beating, money-grabbing jocks aren't fixtures in the culture. Team Yao's studies show that only movie star Jet Li is better known there than Yao. "The Chinese have never had [a professional] athlete succeed on the world stage," says Eric Zhang, Yao's closest advisor. "They've been waiting for someone like Yao. Now is his time." BOX STORY: For more NBA news, plus analysis from Jack McCallum, go to si.com/basketball. "Yao won't be rushed into anything," says one of his advisers. "If we're patient and visionary, he could become a sports-marketing icon."
