Earvin “Magic” Johnson is a renowned former Los Angeles Lakers player and popular basketball personality. During his 12 years in the game, Johnson received numerous awards, was named Most Valuable Player multiple times, and played on the NBA All-Star team. According to sports writer David Dupree, “the statistics, the championships, and the individual awards barely scratch the surface of Johnson’s value as a basketball player and his contribution to the game. He was an innovator the consummate team player who had the rare gift of making all those who played with him better.” He was widely sought out to be a spokesperson for consumer products.
During a press conference on Thursday, November 7, 1991, Johnson revealed that he
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Symptoms:
1. There is uncertainty on how this revelation should be handled
2. If kept on, marketing campaigns would have to be modified
3. If dropped, corporations face severe public backlash
4. The public and corporations voiced their admiration of Johnson’s courageous actions ii. Root Causes
1. Johnson announced that he tested HIV positive
2. Johnson decided to retire from the NBA and become a spokesperson for HIV
3. Executives are unsure of how Johnson’s announcement of his illness will affect the nature of how he is portrayed in advertisements
4. HIV is highly stigmatized and corporations do not want their products associated with the disease
5. Many other athletes have been dropped from endorsements when their health or life took a turn for the worse iii. The decision facing the advertising and sports marketing executives is whether or not to drop Johnson from his spokesperson contracts following the announcement of his illness.
C. Decision Criteria and Alternative Solutions
a. A solution is effective if it mitigates the uncertainty faced by advertising and marketing executives on how they should proceed with Johnson’s contracts, in light of the announcement of his illness. The solution must also be empathic so that public backlash is minimized, profitability of Magic Johnson endorsed products is preserved, and the change in Johnson’s profession are
In a year were so many great athletes are no longer with us, Payne Stewart, Wilt Chamberlain, Joe DiMaggio, Walter Payton, the man we thought would have passed away first is still among us, Magic Johnson. Rick Reilly does a remarkable job on this praising article on Magic. Reilly talks about how fit magic is. "He can bench 325 pounds. Weighing 245, he's about 20 pounds heavier than he was in his prime, but now he's ripped." He is still playing basketball in different celebrity appearances, and plays quite well in them although he is way older than everyone there. What really impressed me the most about Magic is influence as a black businessman. Reilly showed me, as well as America, a different side of Magic that is not seen on Sports Center. "He owns five Starbucks and has plans to open 10 more, nearly all of them in black neighborhoods, including one in Crenshaw and one in Harlem." Magic is willing to put money into the ghettos when other white investors are not. He owns many different businesses, from a TV company to a bank. What is truly amazing is he hires all black people to build and work his businesses. "Magic feels like many black athletes forget where they came from, I try not to." When I read this I was really stunned. He made a fortune taking risks that many other people won't try. He is living his life to the fullest and using his HIV experience to educate great number of people.
Another case is that of 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson whose death was initially ruled the result of accidental suffocation. A second autopsy produced a different conclusion, but when the second autopsy was performed, his body had been stuffed with newspaper, and his organs were missing ("Organ Trafficking, Melanin Theory & the Fountain of Youth -," n.d.). The brain, heart, lungs and liver were missing. He also discovered Johnson's death was due to blunt force trauma to the right side of his neck (Archer,
On July 11th, 1975 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin a doctor by the name of Lester V. Salinsky, performed a surgery on the plaintiff, James Johnson. The surgery was took place at Misericordia Community Hospital (Misericordia), defendant, by Dr. Salinsky. Dr. Salinsky was scheduled to remove a pin fragment from the plaintiff’s right hip. However, “during the course of this surgery, the plaintiff’s common femoral nerve and artery were damaged causing a permanent paralytic condition of his right thigh muscles with resultant atrophy and weakness and loss of function” (Johnson v. Misericordia Community Hospital, n.d.). The plaintiff filed suit against Dr. Salinksy and Misericorida on October 13th, 1976, fifteen months after his unsuccessful surgery, which
... the future of black business in America. Just from reading this book and seeing the future of business and the commodification of black culture since its first publishing, most of the areas that the book touches upon have given accurate insight to how others have cashed in on black culture and how black business has evolved. An example that is evident is of George Foreman and his promotion of the Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine. Here is a black heavyweight boxer that is using not only his name and his former athletic prowess to endorse a product, but, one can say, also stereotypical blackness, with his affinity to unhealthy foods such as hamburgers and hot dogs, to promote a promote a product for Salton, Inc., a Jewish-founded company. Foreman, like Jordan, amassed a large fortune from his promotion of the grills but at the price of selling black culture.
Gregory Lee Johnson was convicted for desecration of a venerated object; a violation of a Texas Statute in the County Criminal Court No. 8 of Dallas County by Judge John C. Hendrik. He sentence was one year in prison and a fine of $2000.
The National Basketball Association no longer holds the prominence that it once had. In the aftermath of the lockout that took away half of the 1998-99 season, the National Basketball Association finds itself looking into an uncertain future. Appearing similar to the state of the league during the mid 1980's, the NBA finds itself with a tarnished image and no icon's to build the league around. With the retirement of Michael Jordan and the number of superstars in which the league built its popularity on during the 1990's getting smaller, the National Basketball Association sits in limbo while it searches for its new identity.
To the members of the support group Naïve People who are Addicted to Mass media and Believe Anything They Hear or Read Anonymous my purpose of being here today is to help you better understand how to analyze the mass media you come across. Mass media is the news, newspapers, magazines, the radio, and the television. The way I’m going to analyze it, is by rhetorical analysis. Rhetoric is how effective the writer is in persuading the reader by using speech and compositional techniques. In order for you to be able to become more apprehensive when reading information, I will be analyzing the ad for Vitaminwater featuring Kobe Bryant. Vitaminwater was introduced in 1996. It is a mineral water that is given out by Energy Brands. Like many sports drinks they use famous athletes to speak for them and promote them. Vitaminwater’s ad with Kobe Bryant is successful because it persuades people to buy their product because it’s, “The Most Valuable Power.”
Instead of just sponsoring professional athletes to show the benefits of Gatorade to everyday athletes, Gatorade used the popularity and power of the pros to depict a different, broader social message. Along with spectacular technical aspects and varying settings, Gatorade was able to prove to all people that victory in anything or any place comes from initial defeat and was able to ignite the self-drive that all of humanity contains but struggles to find. This strong emotion that is felt in just 67 seconds changes the perception of Gatorade and all it stands for. By directing their message at such a wide audience, they were able to change its reputation and prove that Gatorade products are not just for athletes, but for everyone. With “The Secret to Victory,” Gatorade has inspired and instilled a new sense of motivation in viewers but has also successfully and ingeniously created a much larger consumer
A decade worth of athletes has had the chance to eclipse Michael Jordan in the minds of the consumer. Yet even out of the spotlight Jordan remains the sports personality with the greatest endorsement chops in the U.S.”( Badenhausen).
The following case is a review of Juwan Howard, a star basketball player playing for the Washington Bullets. The case study details the ins and outs of the high stakes world of professional basketball and the deals and huge money that is the main focus of owners, agents, players, the players union, managers, and the NBA league every year during draft and free agency.
The National Basketball Association is the most popular professional basketball league in North America; it is also the most popular professional basketball league in the world. The National Basketball Association (NBA) is one of the most diverse businesses in the world, which was the deliberate plan of former NBA commissioner David Stern. The NBA was once an all white and male dominated league, now through years of an aggressive effort to diversify the organization the NBA is now one of the shining beacons for diversity, tolerance and acceptance in the workplace. Former NBA commissioner David Stern spearheaded and put into action on the best examples of creating and cultivation opportunities for success based on merit. “When David Stern steps down as NBA Commissioner in 2014, among the legacies he will have created is an era in professional sport when leagues and teams hired the best people possible. He embraced the moral imperative for diversity while helping to show the other leagues that diversity is also a business imperative. The evidence for the NBA’s continued commitment to racial equality is seen in the strong grades in the League Office and in many key areas on the team level.”(Lapchick, R.) To fully understand the transformation of the league we will cover the history of the association, team diversity, league diversity, the NBA diversity initiative, and current diversity issues.
Marketing companies know that by associating a product with an athlete it can drastically increase sales. Fig 1. Gaines, Cork. "... ... middle of paper ... ...
The NBA is well known for the number of amazing professional athletes it has had over the years. Some of the most gifted and talented individuals come through the NBA and one of the better-known superstars is none other than Kobe Bryant. For years people have wondered what makes Bryant so successful. The main contributors that lead to Kobe Bryant’s success is his hard work and dedication, his mindset, his natural ability’s and talent, and the people that have helped him throughout his life. Kobe Bryant was very successful in the NBA because of the amount of hard work he has put in, the people in his life, his relentless determination and his god given natural abilities.
Michael Jordan, portrayed by Jim Naughton in the biography Taking To The Air: The Rise of Michael Jordan, is well regarded as not only the greatest basketball player of all time but also the face of a generation. During the mid to late 1980s NBA basketball was simply treading water. As a result of the lack of a marketable superstar, the NBA was losing popularity to the National Football League and Major League Baseball. Following Jordan’s emergence, the NBA’s attendance rose dramatically and it’s worldwide popularity skyrocketed. Michael Jordan returned basketball to its past popularity in the United States and revolutionized the way the world viewed the game of basketball. (Harriman) Michael Jordan’s life is succinctly depicted in Taking to The Air: The Rise of Michael Jordan. Jim Naughton focuses on Jordan’s influence on worldwide sports and culture as one of the most publicized and marketed athletes of all time. Naughton explains the circumstances in Jordan’s upbringing that gave him the ability to be a humungous star. This biography is examined by Kirkus Reviews. They describe Naughton’s biography: “Besides offering a solid chronological biography and record of Michael Jordan’s basketball career, here Naughton also gives an astute assessment of this superstar’s impact on society.” (“Taking to the Air”) The article in the Kirkus Review explains that this biography investigates Jordan’s impact on marketing while telling the story of his life. Like Kirkus Reviews, I too believe that Naughton’s work goes into great description about Jordan’s upbringing and later career while also examining his cultural impact. Throughout his life, Michael Jordan has topped the sports and entertainment worlds by becoming the greatest basketball pl...
Smith an NBA insider and host of his own show ESPN “First Take” earns approximately three million dollars a year (Broder 1). Now Rachel Nichols who is also an NBA insider and host of her own show “The Jump” earns approximately 1.5 million dollars a year (“NetworthBio” 2). There is a clear female to male discrimination in sports media within basketball as both of these people are equal to their job and yet the male earns double of what the female makes. Furthermore, Rachel Nichols cannot be the main part of the discussion on “The Jump”, but needs to have two additional men be the primary focus in the conservation that is happening. The networks who are in charge of these shows do not want women to be the focal point, but to have them be men because they are more dominant and recognizable.