Nike paid an 18-year-old high school kid $90 million last week, and now the world is coming to an end.
Or so you would have thought if you followed the pontificating media: How could they pay a kid so much? What kind of message are they sending? Let's boycott Nike!
What is everybody so worked up about? Is anyone still surprised by (a) fat endorsement contracts that require athletes to do nothing more than wear a logo; (b) young, unproven athletes being paid the approximate GNP of Mozambique.
(Speaking of which, when the money tops a certain amount, does it really matter if it's $5 million or $90 million or $120 billion? Isn't it all the same if it covers expenses for three lifetimes or 10 or 20? Last time I checked, athletes still got only one lifetime, unless their agents worked out a side deal that I don't know about.)
This subject is as so old that it's growing mold. It's as tired as the college bowl system. The formula is this: Salaries get bigger, millionaires get younger. Last week a 13-year-old American soccer player was given a $1 million endorsement deal by Nike.
It's not as if Nike is spoiling young people everywhere. Nike is frequently criticized for paying low wages to workers in Asia who make their shoes and apparel. Look at it this way: Maybe Nike is paying nickels to thousands of employees to make shoes on one side of the world, but they're paying a handful of employees millions to wear them on this side of the world.
So it all works out.
Everything and everyone has a logo on it these days, and everyone has a price, including LeBron James, who has a collectible jersey habit to support. When baseball players look straight into the TV camera and tell you they use Viagra, it's pretty much time to toss in the towel and concede that anything goes as long as the price is right.
(Extremely brief conversation I had with my teenage son recently after watching Rafael Palmeiro tell the TV audience he takes Viagra:
Son: "Does that mean he . . . "
Me: "I guess."
I can't think of any other reason he would say he takes the blue pill, although it was reported once that a minor league baseball player who was mired in an 0-for-27 batting slump was given Viagra before a game by his teammates, who told him it was "andro." John Mehalfey went 2 for 3. He said he was on such a hot streak that he scored even after the game was over. Funny guy. So maybe Palmeiro takes Viagra to help his, um, swing.)
But I wander.
Paying James a fortune to wear the swoosh is no different than Indy 500 cars with their Marlboro ads. Tennis players and golfers are human billboards already. Stadiums, tournaments and bowl games are named after weed eaters, insurance companies and airlines (Delta Center, United Center). TV puts those mirage-like ads on football fields that only TV viewers can see.
James is no different. He will be a walking, talking, dunking, dribbling billboard. Millions will watch him as he swishes and swooshes. It's all about logos and how often they get seen. The first thing skiers do after a race is hold their skis next to their faces so the TV cameras will see the logo.
James — budding basketball player and shoe salesman — is learning his loyalties quickly. At a press conference to announce that he would be the Cleveland Cavaliers' first pick, James took time to point to the swoosh on his shirt and tell photographers, "Make sure you get this."
Maybe Nike is the big bully on the sports block, but other shoe companies were lined up behind them, offering as much or more cash for the same opportunity to paste its own logo on James. And, by the way, you're the consumer and, well, somebody's buying those sneakers. If they can afford to throw $100 million at Tiger and $90 million at James and $20 at Carmello Anthony, they must be selling a lot of shoes, golf balls, caps, T-shirts.
Their strategy of turning athletes into billboards seems to be working. How many millions saw Annika Sorenstam and her Oakleys in the Colonial? In hindsight, Tiger Woods was probably a bargain at $40 million — now $100 million. Nike is banking on the obvious interest that James will have when he wears the Cavalier uniform next year. Meanwhile, as James says, make sure you get this. Next time you go out for exercise, put on your Nike T-shirt, Nike full-air sole shoes, Nike socks and Nike shorts and remember that you're supporting Nike employees everywhere.
E-mail: drob@desnews.com