This binary (and the implicit power imbalance) is central to the masochistic pleasure of being the “long-suffering” fan of a smaller-market team. This is a fandom that defines itself against the front-running, “big city” mentality of the Yankees (and now, the Heat). Nike’s success is based on the fostering of front-running, by making their endorsers global brands rather than confining them to their local markets. Nike wants you to abandon your local team and embrace the popular, just as James has done via free-agency (It’s not a coincidence that LeBron is a Yankees rather than an Indians fan.)

But Nike’s commercial could never be anything other than an utter failure. By leaving Cleveland, James dismantled the narrative that he and Nike had built over many years (LeBron as the “new Jordan”, basically.) Now Nike and James have to reconstruct his career narrative — except there is no blueprint for this. Never before has such a prominent NBA player at the height of his abilities left his first (and hometown!) team without winning a championship. How does James reassert his masculine authority without coming off as unjustifiably combative, petty and vainglorious? How does he do this without sacrificing the playful (if wooden) charm of his star persona?

I like what Lindsay says about James needing to re-frame his (potential) future success in terms of “fun” rather than “heroism” — but this will be challenging, because the “fun” part of an athlete’s career usually come at the end of a long, heroic run. Plus, if LeBron wins a title (or eight, as he predicted at the Heat rally in July), his success will most likely be closely tied to Dwayne Wade, to a degree that Jordan’s was not to Scottie Pippen (even if Pippen was a better player than Wade).

Finally, as a media scholar (and, ahem, Milwaukee Bucks fan), it was hard not to feel some schadenfreude when a celebrity with so many publicists and handlers, someone who had fostered his star persona so carefully, made such a deliberate, colossal PR blunder.

Mabel: I think you’re right that it also works to maintain a certain privileging of “the real” in sports stardom, something that Nike’s initial “Witness” campaign with LeBron certainly hinged on. (the meaning of ads/t-shirts/etc. with the swoosh and simply the word ‘witness,’ I guess, drew on one’s both physical and mediated presence for the new legend of basketball and the once-in-a-generation skill of LeBron). But I can’t help but think that, while it certainly cues the viewer in to consider LeBron might be a “real person” in the hype machine with multiple pressures on his image, the *timing* of the ad actually DETRACTS from the “real” of his performance and skills on the court that the season brings by reconstituting questions about his star image rather than his athletic skill. At least it does for me, anyway. I can certainly see how accusing the viewer of seeing LeBron as an image and not a “real” person might also frame the season opener differently. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how this might work in baseball.

Annie: Absolutely – I’m also fascinated by the fact that extra-textual/private life info about sports figures might *add* to our understanding of that star, but in most cases it is ultimately tangental, unlike other entertainment stars. I really like the point you make that it might be about how their “labor” is constructed/understood differently from actors, musicians, etc. Where being a movie star is glamorous and fun, involved in the “magic” of the movies, professional sports are lots of hard work, training, physical strain, and it involves skills that some of us recognize are difficult – we’ve played basketball or football or baseball or golf, and watching LeBron sink a jumper from across the court or Tiger hit the green with precision is recognized as something we can’t do, where their skill becomes more easily identified as elite because we’ve tried it, maybe? I’ve never acted nor made a movie – the labor or elite skill is much less visible there for an actor or actress? I don’t know. But the perceived “objectivity” and “real”-ness of sports is definitely important, like you and Mabel say. Those that rise to star status in professional sports are supposedly based on an objective performance of skill on the field, “where the best man wins,” right?

Nora: I certainly agree that his questions imply certain answers (and that’s the point, right, that the answer is ultimately supposed to be “just do it,” just do what you want regardless of what others think about you, which works to re-align and re-commodify LeBron’s star image with that of Nike, consumption, and patriarchal capitalism). But by framing it as a question in the first place where the answers are only implied, I think, also leaves room for that answer to be different for different people. In advertising, most spots are about TELLING you what the brand is, simply and concisely. This ad, while it sets up the answers, at least ASKS the viewer what the brand is about and goes about it in a more rhetorical way that recognizes the precariousness of the process; I suppose that is the difference I was trying to get at. ANd yes, I would totally come by your office more if it weren’t so far away and difficult to get to. 😉

Evan: I’m glad you brought up the frustration in how LeBron’s “controversy” has received more attention and outrage, at least in mainstream sports outlets, than Big Ben’s rape allegations and reduced suspension. I agree it might just be less antithetical to the white, heteronormative, hypermasculine locker room mentality that surrounds sports like football, and that’s what gets me the most, I guess. Because LeBron’s supposed transgression of the “franchise savior prodigy -> maturation struggle -> championship delivery narrative” that Chris identifies is discursively constructed as a big deal, but is actually much more easily recuperated into a larger narrative of hypermasculinity and capitalism.

Chris: Thanks so much for posting that vid – Nick and I watched in the office yesterday, and I found it really interesting in how the ad can actually reconstitute the very counter-narrative it’s trying to squash. I’m not sure LeBron can ultimately work his way back in to the “good graces” of sports fans and observers – I think instead of constructing his success as “heroic,” he now has to reorient any championships he wins or records he sets as fun and self-satisfying.

Then again, LeBron’s actions will likely never be forgotten in Cleveland. The team was awful before he arrived and he took them back to relevance. This is an achievement for which he should potentially be lauded, but all that people will think about is the fact that he took them only part of the way and left in an undesirable fashion. To wit, check out this video that a Cleveland filmmaker released on 11/4 in response to the Nike commercial:

It’s all good publicity for Nike, but I wonder if LeBron’s image can ever be fully rehabilitated given that he has abandoned a long-suffering rust belt sports city for some sun n’ fun with his pals. I don’t know that this commercial can really help to rehabilitate LeBron, though the dialogue between the two vids might help those invested in the situation to work through it. It seems to me that the commercial mostly just incorporates the whole LeBron free agency spectacle into Nike’s LeBron narrative. Nike has a huge investment in the fallen King, and thus they must work with this material. For me, the ‘Just Do It’ at the end represents Nike’s hope that LeBron can win enough to work his way of the hole he created this past summer. At the same time, the ‘Quitness’ slogan over the inverted swoosh at the end of the response vid provides a counterpoint indicating that LeBron still hasn’t really accomplished that much and that this might relate to certain personality flaws. If LeBron is be rehabilitated as a star and an anchor commodity, he must win in the right way so as to work his way back into the good graces of sports fans and observers.

But Roethlisberger and Bryant have been accused of rape–something that presumably falls outside the purview of rehabilitation-through-advertising. I find it interesting and dispiriting that there has been considerably more public outrage aimed at Lebron this year than Roethlisberger. But perhaps Ben’s aggressive, hyper-masculine behavior is written off as the norm and quickly swept under the rug, whereas the spectacle of The Decision–what with its seeming celebration of Lebron’s (free) agency–seemed to threaten the NBA’s containment of its star’s image.

As for LeBron, I think the real question isn’t what is legacy is now, but whether or not he’ll be able to work with The Heat to create a new legacy — winning multiple championships in a decided fashion that will render the move from the Cavs a mere footnote that culminated in this “new” legacy. So why is Nike working hard on his image now? Shouldn’t it be more concerned with whether LeBron does well this coming year — as that seems to drive consumption of LeBron-Nike products far more than whether or not we “like” him?

Or does it? This is real question — I think that most fans would say that their fandom is rooted in a player’s skill, but Kobe and A-Rod seem to be fine examples of players with skill whose extra-textual personalities turn fans away. Is Kobe less valuable as an endorser because he’s kind of an ass? (and an accused rapist?) Does gossip affect athlete fandom?

I think the answer is yes, but people don’t like to think so. Sports are supposed to be objective, yes? The biggest talents rise to the top, and personality has nothing to do with it. Indeed, that’s why sports are so heavily intertwined with ideologies of the American Dream and capitalism. (One of the reasons I really enjoy Mabel Rosenheck’s work is that she repeatedly invokes the way that star and image function within baseball).

Finally, will sports stardom ever die? I know that Nike relies on it (because what else sells clothes and shoes?). There’s tremendous anxiety about the death of stardom in Hollywood, but as in sports, I think personalities (e.g star images) are fashioned, though the media, discourse, our own reception, to mean things that matter to us — put differently, the stars make the sport meaningful, just as they make a Hollywood narrative (more) meaningful. Stars don’t die; what we want from them (and how we consume them) simply changes.

I’m kinda all over the place here, but you’ve given me a lot to think about….and can’t wait to hear more of your thoughts.