In 2017 I wrote a post on why the Harden Vol. 1 wasn’t being sold by James Harden. Since that time Harden’s signature shoe has lost shelf space in retail outlets and has been a promotional item with very little excitement. You can almost place the decrease in interest on adidas basketball to Zion Williamson heading to Duke and then signing with Jordan Brand. It’s a stretch, but I could try to run the numbers. I do have at my disposal that I resold a lot of the Harden Vol. 1 and since then I haven’t done a video of any Hardens, which means that I haven’t sold a single pair in resale; and as you know resale is a strong indicator of brand interest.
What does this have to do with my title and me watching The Witcher? Everything. I watched the first half of Zion’s debut and it was underwhelming because of the minutes restriction, so I joined my wife in finishing the first season of The Witcher on Netflix. I knew that Zion would play again in the second half, but it was 11pm and in my house my teenage son would rather watch The Witcher and my wife only knows Zion because I talk about him. My daughter isn’t a teen yet, so she had to go to sleep. Where am I going with this?
NBA Viewership is down… Or is it?
It’s been four years since Zion burst on the scene without enough gravity to help adidas basketball as a high school junior. That energy led to a guy becoming a viral sensation with over 4 million followers on Instagram.
There is a correlation between the viewership of the NBA and the sale of signature basketball shoes for sports brands, but the discussion of viewership and sneaker sales is a complicated discussion and would take much longer than this post could deliver so I’m going to drop this video here and you’re going to watch Zion and say, “Well damn! Kid is just as advertised!” and then we’ll climb into why Zion will create the adjustment needed to clarify why the NBA might be able to turnaround their viewership issues, or at least adjust how they look at viewership and what it means for sneaker sales.
In the post above I explained that Jordan Brand understood Zion’s reach. This was before he had surgery and it completely disrupted the momentum of Jordan Brand and the NBA. However, in my title I discuss me watching The Witcher. I did so with the realization that whatever I missed in real time I could wake up this morning and watch via YouTube and on various forms of social media. Is the NBA utilizing YouTube as a metric for viewership? Is there a means of analyzing IG and FB views to account for younger viewers?
Those are questions that also pertain to the sale of sneakers. Zion has been on the shelf. Jordan Brand continued to roll out colors of the Air Jordan 34, but they have fallen flat and the shoes don’t have any resale value. In Zion’s opening game the brand went with a muted olive green “Bayou Boys” themed player exclusive:
It’s obviously limited and the brand could create a potential release date, because Zion’s first game was a moment. I’ve been discussing that Ivy Park like all fashion plays by sports brands won’t create a legacy because the release isn’t tied to a moment. Zion’s first game will create a legacy for the future use by Jordan Brand. That is really important to understand.
Even with this moment, my family is a great representation of who will be engaged here. Zion’s peers who joined his ride in high school are now in their 20s. Many of the people who shared and recorded his games are not teens. The demographic around Zion will expand because as young parents watch and grow with Zion, their kids will come to know the name and man. That group of kids would prefer to stream and watch YouTube than to sit up until 12 and watch the NBA. Right now Zion is ascending and the NBA will undoubtedly get a boost, but the question will remain, is Zion trans-formative? Will he usher in a generation of kids who are interested in basketball although they will never make their high school team? Will his game make my teenage son leave Call of Duty, eSports, and his own interests to ask me to take him to the Grizzlies vs Pelicans game? Probably not. My daughter won’t ask either, which means that they probably won’t become the people Jordan Brand should be targeting for their new sneaker drops.
Which finally gets me to my point in this post. I woke up to see what Zion has done. I’m writing about his performance and what it means. I’m not the segment that sneaker brands are aiming their marketing dollars towards. If you’re a sports brand shouldn’t you really be paying more attention to me even if I missed the second half to watch The Witcher?