Page is loading

Close

Contact Us

Please fill in the form below and a sales representative will reply as soon as possible.

GISELE, RIHANNA DEALS SIGNAL END OF ENDORSEMENTS FOR ACTUAL FEMALE ATHLETES.

Under Armour has been named Ad Age’s Marketer of the Year primarily for its novel approach marketing to women. The success Under Armour has enjoyed with its I Will campaign underscores why Title IX — while generating lots of positive results — has been an abject failure in reshaping opportunities for women in sports marketing and redefining the way our society treats and values women’s sports. Now Puma has followed suit by signing Rhianna as the face of its women’s fitness line and giving her the title of “creative director.” When Under Armour debuted its Gisele TV commercial, while acknowledging its effectiveness, I offered the opinion that a double standard has been created by the media, and that double standard has shaped viewing habits, public opinion and marketing. I concluded that this trend does not bode well for the growth of women’s sports nor does it help top-tier female athletes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-V7cOestUs The starting point of all this is that women’s sports get a fraction of the respect and audience that men’s sports do. The media have not historically promoted or distributed women’s sports. And most women athletes grew up looking up to male athletes as their “role model.” Title IX was supposed to change all that. But while girls got to “play” instead of “cheerlead,” our sports viewing habits did not change. Why? The reason is that, while schools had to change and let girls play sports, the media were allowed to continue their old ways of ignoring women’s sports. A primary reason why we do not perceive men and female athletes equally is that the media treat them like second-class citizens — and advertisers only follow suit. Bottom line, our attitude toward women’s athletes is shaped by sport media and Madison Avenue. And Madison Avenue sets the standard for our double standard of social currency among men (rich/winner/athletic) and women (attractive/youthful). When it comes to male athletes, all that matters is whether you win at one of the major sports. The general rule is that if you are a winner — the best in the business — then you will be rewarded handsomely with endorsements or marketing deals (Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, Kevin Durant). In marked contrast, the sports brands realized over the years that you don’t have to pay top women athletes the big bucks no matter what. For example, when we represented Lisa Leslie, the best player in the WNBA, Nike kept reducing its offers to Lisa even as she got better and more dominant as a player. The reasoning was that Nike discovered that male athletes were “still” driving the sales of the shoes anyway (girls looked up to the male athletes more because of the additional exposure and promotion that they received). More recently, as women have been wearing workout gear or athletic apparel throughout the day (as men have done for years), the sports brands have started to experiment with different approaches seeing this as a growth market. Now there is much more emphasis on whether a female athlete is attractive and youthful, rather than the best in the world. In fact, it is arguably better to be an athletic youthful model rather than athlete who happens to be attractive (at least from Under Armour’s perspective). All of this is completely in line with Madison Avenue’s view of how to market women. There was quite a bit of chatter around Under Armour’s signing Gisele to a reportedly whopping deal to be the face of its women’s athletic footwear and apparel line. Obviously, Gisele is super attractive and even athletic and perhaps even a remarkable lady — but she certainly is not considered a world-class athlete or more importantly she is not best in the world at a sport that large numbers of girls play (i.e. soccer, basketball or volleyball). But who can argue with Under Armour’s results in light of the growth for its women’s business as a result of the I Will campaign. I appreciate attractive female athletes, but I don’t think that being physically attractive (usually models or actresses win this battle) should be the initial criterion when a sports brand is deciding whether to sign a woman endorser. But it seems the women that are buying the product don’t really care about this. If we really want to see change, the sports media, starting with the major distributors like ESPN, Fox and NBC, should be required to promote and distribute a certain amount of women’s sports on TV. Girls and women need to be conditioned to watch women’s sports. They make up more than half the viewing audience for goodness sake. Not only should sports companies should apply the same standard to female athletes as they do to men, they should make women’s sports just as relevant to women as men’s sports are to men. I’m interested in your thoughts, please comment below.

Under Armour has been named Ad Age’s Marketer of the Year primarily for its novel approach marketing to women. The success Under Armour has enjoyed with its I Will campaign underscores why Title IX — while generating lots of positive results — has been an abject failure in reshaping opportunities for women in sports marketing and redefining the way our society treats and values women’s sports. Now Puma has followed suit by signing Rhianna as the face of its women’s fitness line and giving her the title of “creative director.” When Under Armour debuted its Gisele TV commercial, while acknowledging its effectiveness, I offered the opinion that a double standard has been created by the media, and that double standard has shaped viewing habits, public opinion and marketing. I concluded that this trend does not bode well for the growth of women’s sports nor does it help top-tier female athletes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-V7cOestUs The starting point of all this is that women’s sports get a fraction of the respect and audience that men’s sports do. The media have not historically promoted or distributed women’s sports. And most women athletes grew up looking up to male athletes as their “role model.” Title IX was supposed to change all that. But while girls got to “play” instead of “cheerlead,” our sports viewing habits did not change. Why? The reason is that, while schools had to change and let girls play sports, the media were allowed to continue their old ways of ignoring women’s sports. A primary reason why we do not perceive men and female athletes equally is that the media treat them like second-class citizens — and advertisers only follow suit. Bottom line, our attitude toward women’s athletes is shaped by sport media and Madison Avenue. And Madison Avenue sets the standard for our double standard of social currency among men (rich/winner/athletic) and women (attractive/youthful). When it comes to male athletes, all that matters is whether you win at one of the major sports. The general rule is that if you are a winner — the best in the business — then you will be rewarded handsomely with endorsements or marketing deals (Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, Kevin Durant). In marked contrast, the sports brands realized over the years that you don’t have to pay top women athletes the big bucks no matter what. For example, when we represented Lisa Leslie, the best player in the WNBA, Nike kept reducing its offers to Lisa even as she got better and more dominant as a player. The reasoning was that Nike discovered that male athletes were “still” driving the sales of the shoes anyway (girls looked up to the male athletes more because of the additional exposure and promotion that they received). More recently, as women have been wearing workout gear or athletic apparel throughout the day (as men have done for years), the sports brands have started to experiment with different approaches seeing this as a growth market. Now there is much more emphasis on whether a female athlete is attractive and youthful, rather than the best in the world. In fact, it is arguably better to be an athletic youthful model rather than athlete who happens to be attractive (at least from Under Armour’s perspective). All of this is completely in line with Madison Avenue’s view of how to market women. There was quite a bit of chatter around Under Armour’s signing Gisele to a reportedly whopping deal to be the face of its women’s athletic footwear and apparel line. Obviously, Gisele is super attractive and even athletic and perhaps even a remarkable lady — but she certainly is not considered a world-class athlete or more importantly she is not best in the world at a sport that large numbers of girls play (i.e. soccer, basketball or volleyball). But who can argue with Under Armour’s results in light of the growth for its women’s business as a result of the I Will campaign. I appreciate attractive female athletes, but I don’t think that being physically attractive (usually models or actresses win this battle) should be the initial criterion when a sports brand is deciding whether to sign a woman endorser. But it seems the women that are buying the product don’t really care about this. If we really want to see change, the sports media, starting with the major distributors like ESPN, Fox and NBC, should be required to promote and distribute a certain amount of women’s sports on TV. Girls and women need to be conditioned to watch women’s sports. They make up more than half the viewing audience for goodness sake. Not only should sports companies should apply the same standard to female athletes as they do to men, they should make women’s sports just as relevant to women as men’s sports are to men. I’m interested in your thoughts, please comment below.

HOW WILL THE NFL SAY “NO MORE” TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE?.

The Ray Rice domestic violence matter has shined a giant spotlight on an issue that has surfaced time and time again in the lives of professional athletes; namely, domestic and other forms of violence outside the field of play. This seems even more prevalent in sports that are particularly violent in nature. In other words, when you make violence and/or physical contact the essence of your profession (like in the NFL), how do you learn to turn it off in other parts of your life? Apparently, it is not so easy.

The Ray Rice domestic violence matter has shined a giant spotlight on an issue that has surfaced time and time again in the lives of professional athletes; namely, domestic and other forms of violence outside the field of play. This seems even more prevalent in sports that are particularly violent in nature. In other words, when you make violence and/or physical contact the essence of your profession (like in the NFL), how do you learn to turn it off in other parts of your life? Apparently, it is not so easy.

The NFL’s policy on domestic violence is archaic and reactionary rather than proactive and progressive. The NFL would have loved to sweep the Ray Rice incident under the rug. When it blew up in their face—the NFL (and Ray Rice’s team, the Baltimore Ravens) over-reacted in an effort to calm the outrage by unceremoniously cutting Rice from his team and issuing a draconian suspension. The suspension was recently overturned by an independent arbitrator in that the length unjustly punished Rice far beyond the scope of the justice system.

In truth, the NFL is much like Gladiators of ancient Rome and the “voluntary” and “permissive” violence it promotes on the field is the same violence that our culture is infatuated with as evidenced by the enormous TV ratings for NFL games. But the NFL has a duty to take effective measures to ensure that the athletes that are so violent on the field get the counseling and training they need to ensure this violence does not carry over to domestic life. This counseling should start even before an incident like Ray Rice’s breaks out (domestic abuse; fighting; bullying;, etc.). The NFL has a further duty to ensure that its athlete employees are good corporate citizens, promoting the type of values that the NFL should be promoting off the field of play that can be an example to its fans and society as a whole.

Simply stated, the NFL could have avoided all this by using an approach of clarity and transparency clearly outlined in a five step process that should ultimately be incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement:

Education—every sports league (through its teams) should institute a mandatory education policy about the dangers and consequences of domestic and other forms of violence. This more “violent” the sport, the more intensive the program should be.  The process should be audited to ensure compliance.

Suspension/fine—in proportion to the offense committed (after an internal investigation takes place with at least some minimum “due process” standards in place)

Counseling—must be administered by reputable and independent agencies (not by organizations on the NFL payroll, no matter how good their credentials).

Community Service— must be administered by reputable and independent agencies (not by organizations on the NFL payroll, no matter how good their credentials).

Zero tolerance— for repeat offenders

This openly stated policy by the NFL (education/fine/suspension/rehab/service/0 tolerance) would go a long way to send a message that the NFL demands its athletes absolutely refrain from domestic violence/ bullying etc. off the football field, and that such violence has absolutely no place in our society.