Reebok brings in deal maker Vaccaro
Reebok International Ltd. yesterday hired Sonny Vaccaro, the man responsible for signing basketball stars like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Tracy McGrady to endorsement deals at Nike and Adidas, to build a pipeline of future stars.
Arguably the most influential man in the world of amateur basketball, Vaccaro started the nation's first high-school all-star tournament and runs two of high-school basketball's most elite annual events. He has ready access to top high-school players and coaches.
For decades, Vaccaro has turned that network into a marketing gold mine for sneaker companies. Within months of joining Nike in 1978, he signed 20 high-profile basketball coaches to shoe contracts in a market then dominated by Converse. He pioneered the idea of outfitting high-school teams in brand-name gear. And in 1984, he signed Jordan to his first Nike shoe deal.
"It's a major coup for Reebok to bring Sonny on board," said Chris Wallace, general manager of the Celtics and a friend of Vaccaro. "Sonny's network is likely to catch in its nets the next great player, the next young `it' player, and that's a big catch for any shoe company."
Though Reebok struck a deal with the National Basketball Association two years ago to stamp its vector logo on team uniforms and boasts Philadelphia 76ers guard Allen Iverson as a star endorser, the Canton company is woefully behind in wooing young talent. While Nike and Adidas sponsor scores of high-school and college basketball teams, Reebok has less than a dozen such deals.
In May, it lost a high-profile bidding war for LeBron James, a high-school basketball star who went on to become this year's top NBA draft pick and is often billed as the next Michael Jordan. The loss was a blow to Reebok, which is returning to the high-stakes world of sports endorsements in hopes of unseating Nike as the number one name in performance athletic shoes.
"We're focused; we're winning; we're closing the gap; we're the number two brand in basketball," said Paul Fireman, Reebok's CEO and chairman. "One really good surge ahead, and we could be back on top of the heap."
The challenge is formidable. Shoe companies sold nearly $8 billion worth of sneakers in the United States last year, and Nike owns nearly 40 percent of that market, according to Bob McGee, editor of Sporting Goods Intelligence. With just 12 percent of the market, Reebok is a distant second. And Nike is even more dominant in basketball, which is the market's second-largest category behind running, McGee said.
With Vaccaro on board, however, Reebok could be a formidable player. The company is also expected to sign Houston Rockets center Yao Ming, one of the NBA's most popular players, to an endorsement deal. Ming's contract with Nike expired this year. Ming's agent, Bill Duffy, said he expects Ming to sign with Reebok, but the deal is not yet closed.
"You now have a guy with the ultimate connections at a company that seems committed and has the resources to battle Nike," said Dan Wetzel, a columnist at Yahoo Sports and co-author of "Sole Influence," a book examining the sneaker industry's involvement in high-school sports.
Nothing pleases Vaccaro more than going to battle against Nike. The Oregon company fired Vaccaro in 1991 for reasons that remain unclear. Vaccaro says he was let go because he no longer fit the corporate image of the company he helped build into an industry powerhouse. Vaccaro hasn't forgotten the slight.
After leaving Nike, he went to work for Adidas. Vaccaro's camps and all-star tournaments gave the German sneaker maker instant credibility. He signed Bryant and McGrady, both high-school stars who jumped directly to the NBA, to endorsement deals. But Nike continued to dominate the basketball arena. When he lost the bidding war for James, whom Vaccaro had already known for years, it marked a turning point.
Adidas couldn't pony up the money to compete with Nike's $102 million offer. But Reebok did, and Vaccaro saw in Reebok a company with the resources and the commitment he needed to be number one again. What the company was missing was a network of young players, deals with high-school and college teams, and experience in wooing young talent for endorsement deals.
"If I can help the company find this grass-roots component, then I think we can win," Vaccaro said. "I'll win this game, or I'll make Nike pay a lot of money."
Naomi Aoki can be reached at naoki@globe.com.
