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September 2008 - Strategy Magazine
Biz

Where opportunity happens

by Mary Dickie
page 12

Canada may still be hockey country, but basketball - which was, after all, invented by a Canadian in 1891 - is starting to muscle in on its territory. Playing basketball, which can be done almost anywhere and requires little in the way of equipment, has become increasingly popular among young people - to the point that it is now the number one sport played between the ages of 12 and 24 in Canada.

Interest in the professional games of the New York, NY-based National Basketball Association has been growing in Canada as well. Attendance at games hosted by the Toronto Raptors, the NBA's only Canadian team, increased by 6% during the 2007-08 season over 2006-07, pushing capacity at the Air Canada Centre to an impressive 98%.

Perhaps more importantly, Canadian television viewership for the 2007-08 NBA season - the games are broadcast on CBC, TSN, Rogers Sportsnet, The Score, Raptors TV and Sun TV - was up 32% over the previous season, and Canadian traffic to the official NBA.com website was up 28%. In June, more than 1.8 million Canadians visited NBA.com, representing a 40% increase over June 2007, and page views in the same period were up 25%.

Part of the reason for that is the relative success of the Raptors, who made the NBA playoffs for the second season in a row, and feature considerable star power in the form of captain Chris Bosh (and new addition Jermaine O'Neal). And it doesn't hurt that one of the league's best players, two-time MVP Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns, is Canadian.

But basketball's popularity goes deeper than that. Its close association with hip-hop and urban street culture - from basketball-themed tracks by Kurtis Blow, Public Enemy and Jay-Z, who's part-owner of the New Jersey Nets, to the gold chains, baggy shorts and high-performance shoes worn first by athletes, then musicians and then millions - has given basketball an enduring cachet as it's spread from U.S. inner-city courts to suburban neighbourhoods, fashion runways and concert stages around the world. Players like Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Charles Barkley are on par with movie and rock stars, and the opportunities for marketers are enormous.

Faced with the challenge of building on basketball's ascent, NBA Canada, the Toronto company that acts as the marketing arm for the NBA in this country, recently named former marketing director Dan MacKenzie as general manager, as well as George Dudas as manager, business development, Leah Brown as manager, licensing and merchandising and Jonathan Chang as manager, marketing partnerships. NBA Canada now has a team of five full-time and two part-time employees - plus another dozen at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), the company that owns the Raptors, who work closely with NBA Canada on various initiatives.

In May, NBA Canada signed a deal with Parmalat Canada to develop basketball-themed marketing programs for its cheese products, adding the Toronto-based dairy company to a list of partners that includes Colgate-Palmolive (Speed Stick), Wrigley, Adidas, Nike, Gatorade, Coca-Cola (Sprite), Spalding, Sirius Satellite Radio and EA Sports, which makes video games like NBA Live.

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