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731 Service Supplementary Information Cases – 732 Practice Quiz Answer – 813 Glossary – 835 Index – 849 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. R. Czinkota et al., Marketing Management, Springer Texts in Business and Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66916-4 732 Cases Cases Case 1: Yo Man! It’s Yao Ming! Take one 22-year-old basketball player with a rare physical characteristic—a 296- pound physique spread over 7 feet, 6 inches. Stir in sleek mid-range jump shots, smooth passing skills, shot-blocking ability, court speed, and a plethora of low post moves. Add in charisma with a dash of humor. And, one more thing: Make him from China, the world’s most populous nation, with an untapped market of 1.393 billion people. From the casting comes Yao Ming— “the next big thing” for interna- tional services and global business. Ming, the Next Big Thing Straight from the Basketball Association of the People’s Republic of China, Yao was the frst international player ever selected as the number one overall pick by the NBA’s Houston Rockets. Despite an expected lengthy adjustment period, Yao was a solid contributor to the Rockets almost immediately. In a November game against the Los Angeles Lakers in his frst year in the NBA, Yao scored 20 points; 4 days later, he had 30 points and 16 rebounds against the Dallas Mavericks. On December 3, against the San Antonio Spurs and two of the NBA’s foremost “big men,” David Robinson and Tim Duncan, Yao dazzled again: 27 points, 18 rebounds, and 3 blocks. Within 5 short months, Yao had become a star—ranking second in the league in shooting, with 56% accuracy and averaging 14 points per game. Yao’s NBA stardom stems from not only his talents but also his personality. His self-deprecating charisma and humor make him hard to dislike. While describing a dunk he missed, Yao told his teammates, “When you have pitiful moments, that makes the good moments more valuable.” When fellow NBA star Shaquille O’Neal said to a reporter, “Tell Yao Ming ‘Ching chong yang wah ah soh’” while making kung fu moves, Yao quipped that Chinese is “a very diffcult language to learn.” With his talent and personality, Yao is the king, “the literal and fgurative center of attention, bestriding two continents and making hearts pound and cash registers ring in both.” Yao Ming, however, retired from his NBA career in 2011; “whenever anyone thinks about the NBA, the greats of the modern era are indisputable: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, just to name a few. Since its inaugural season in 1946, much of the NBA’s personality and perception is defned by some of its best players. For much of the league’s time, African-American and Caucasian players have been its fabric. However, one player changed all of this.” He is Yao Ming. Looking Back to the Cross-Border Yao Ming Mania With fans’ interest in the NBA plummeting since the championship run of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, Yao arrived none too soon. In the United States, the Rockets’ television ratings and ticket sales had increased 65%. The Rockets distrib- 733 Cases uted Yao “growth charts” and plastered the city with billboards bearing his image. ESPN ran commercials showing him dangling out of a tiny bunk bed and perform- ing tai chi with the Rockets’ mascot. Perhaps more signifcantly, Yao became a culture’s hero by breaking the Hollywood portrayal of Asian males as inscrutable and subservient and dispelling the popular stereotype of the Asian–American as a bookish, slight, overachieving pre-med student with little athleticism. In 2002, Asian-American ticket purchases accounted for less than 1% of Houston’s total sales. With Yao’s entrance a year later, that number had grown to 14%. “Yao Ming Mania” isn’t only domestic: Ripple effects were even shown in Toronto, Canada, the home of the Raptors and 500,000 Chinese. CCBC, the Raptors’ local Chinese radio broadcaster, hired a Mandarin reporter for postgame interviews, and ticket purchases by the Chinese-Canadian Youth Athletic Association increased by 150%. NBA Going Global With basketball the world’s number two team sport, behind soccer, the former NBA commissioner David Stern had been laying the groundwork for global penetration for nearly 15 years, broadcasting to and recruiting from the international scene. Fans’ strong positive response to the infux of players from Germany (Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki), Yugoslavia (Sacramento’s Peja Stojakovic), and Spain (Memphis’ Pau Gasol) propelled the NBA to recruit globally. “Yao came at the perfect time to the perfect league,” notes Rich Thomaselli, a sports marketing expert. “The NBA has wanted exponential global growth. Other foreign players have helped, but Yao, who is truly unique because of his size, personality, and background, will lead the way.” What better country to begin “exponential global growth” than China, home to 1.393 billion people? The Rockets and the NBA couldn’t be more grateful for “Yao Ming Mania.” As Rockets former President and CEO George Postolos said, “it’s incredible. In one week when we drafted Yao, we got more international attention than either of our two NBA championships. We think we’re on our way to becoming the most-watched team in the world.” Postolos was right: The level of international viewership is astounding. Yao’s NBA debut against the Indiana Pacers in October 2002 reached 287 million Chinese households—in contrast to 105 million in the United States. On a weeknight in December 2002, an NBA game between two strong teams drew a television viewer- ship of 1.1 million Americans. Compare that to an 8 A.M. broadcast game between the Rockets and the league’s worst team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, which pulled in 6 million Chinese viewers. Another 11.5 million tuned in for a repeat of the game that night—even a live broadcast of an NBA fnals game doesn’t attract an audience of that size in the United States. A few decades ago, fans in China were lucky to see one NBA game per week, usually from a month-old tape mailed to Beijing. Since the beginning of the Yao Ming Mania, the average Chinese viewer can watch four games weekly, and many can catch a ffth game on Hong Kong-based satellite channels. But the NBA isn’t just reeling in “Yao Ming Mania” fans for the short term: With a sixfold increase in NBA broadcasting, only a quarter are Rockets’ games showing Yao. “The league wants to 734 Cases use the interest in Yao to build interest in all its teams,” Michael Denzel, the former managing director of NBA Asia, asserts. “We’re not the Rockets Channel. Even when the Chicago Bulls were at their peak, we didn’t focus exclusively on one team. We’re trying to create bounce.” Corporate “Courtship” Regardless of the NBA’s long-term aspirations, the short-term effect is clear: Millions of Chinese, young and old, basketball buffs and novices, are dodging work, skipping class, and losing sleep to catch a glimpse of their hometown hero’s performance on the NBA stage. Clearly, the Asian market isn’t only going to watch; it’s also going to buy. “Asian and Asian-American consumers haven’t plugged in to sneakers and sports apparel,” says Thomaselli. “I could see a whole Yao line.” With the frst batch of NBA-licensed goods having arrived in China in April 2003, signature jerseys of the usual superstars—Kobe Bryant, Shaq, and Allen Iverson—and of the greatly anticipated Rockets’ Number 11 few off shelves. Unlike other professional leagues, the NBA has long had a global vision. Now, it has, at least in Asia, the main ingredi- ent to help reach that aspiration. For the corporate scene, Yao is more than just the “biggest Chinese import to hit the United States in years.” He’s the perfect vehicle for multinational corporations to enter the land of 1.393 billion potential consumers. Markets are opened, and young people have started to express themselves with purchasing power. One of the best ways to capture their purchasing power has been through sports fgures. A few Asian athletes, such as Michael Chang and Michelle Kwan, have attained prominence, but in individual sports. Marquee basketball players, like Yao, command the most lucra- tive and successful endorsements. Yet, unlike in the United States, where endorse- ment fgures like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan are familiar, Yao is a marketing fgure who can dominate China’s still-emerging market without competition. Just halfway through Yao’s rookie season, he was everywhere: He sized up Austin Powers’ Mini-Me in TV ads for Apple computers; he played a confused New York tourist in a Visa commercial that double features Yogi Berra, and he graced the cover of Sports Illustrated twice in only 4 months. In China, he was the centerpiece of the print campaign from Nike and Gatorade. China is the most elusive market for the wireless industry, having the world’s largest mobile phone subscriber base, with 1.6 billion users, and the highest percent- age of online gamers. Because the Chinese public idolizes the athlete and embraces mobile technology, wireless companies were quick to enlist Yao as their spokesper- son. After signing a $5 million contract with China’s Unicom, Yao hawks its wireless service, and Sorrento, a California-based technology frm, combines the best of both the cell phone and gaming worlds by developing and marketing “Yao Ming Basketball,” a mobile phone game that renders the latest 3D animations.