Michael Chang (alias: The Man MC) - fan tribute site for the Chinese American tennis player

from tennis rackets to tinted contacts

Nelson Wang looks at the major league game of athletic endorsements, to find out if Asian Americans get fair play

LIKE SEX, SPORTS SELL.

You can't make a move in the media monde without being shilled by a sports celebrity. From Shaq pitching Pepsi to Charles Barkley gliding on Right Guard to Wayne Gretzky hawking camcorders, sports marketing has become a billion-dollar industry in the '90s, with athletes themselves raking in an estimated $200 million a year in endorsement and SPONSORSHIP FEES.

Still, the absence of Asian athletes among these celebrity endorsers is striking. The two most successful Asian American athletes today, tennis player Michael Chang and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, both have their share of endorsements -- Reebok and Prince tennis equipment for Chang, Wendy's and DuraSoft Colors contact lenses for Yamaguchi -- but these aren't high-profile, multimillion-dollar deals with deep- pocketed corporate giants like Nike, Pepsi, or McDonald's.

Naturally, one is led to ask "Why?" Aren't Chang and Yamaguchi as talented as the Kerrigans and the Agassis and the Jordans, to name a few sports figures whose endorsement lists tower over theirs? As proven winners who are both thoughtful and photogenic, wouldn't they be just as successful selling products like cars, soft drinks, and sneakers? Or is America, despite its pretensions to color-blindness, just unready to embrace an Asian American celebrity who's not a scientist or a doctor or a classical musician?

Bill Imada, whose Los Angeles consulting firm advises companies reaching out to the Asian market, feels that American companies are reluctant to use Asian Americans as spokespersons. "People like Kristi Yamaguchi don't represent, at least with marketers, the wholesome all-American image," says Imada. "The people making decisions in advertising, public relations, and marketing are, for the most part, white males who are most comfortable dealing with, and talking to, other white people."

Imada says he's been told by countless companies, from banks to insurance companies to soft-drink makers, that they don't want Asians in their ads because they're fearful of alienating their mainstream -- read: white -- customers. "They're afraid they might lose shares in the general market because there are certain images associated with their products, like Mom, apple pie, and America, and advertisers don't want to jeopardize that," says Imada. "Advertisers weren't exactly banging down Yamaguchi's door to give her endorsements."

Others, however, feel that both Yamaguchi and Chang have been successful at garnering endorsements, and that any barriers they've faced have more to do with the sports they play than the fact that they're Asian. Besides Chang's deals with Reebok and Prince tennis equipment, he' s sponsored by several companies in Asia, while Yamaguchi currently represents DuraSoft Colors contact lenses and Hoechst Celanese fabrics, and has done promotions with Kellogg's and Wendy's. Brian Murphy, editor and publisher of Sports Marketing Letter, estimates that Chang' s endorsements are worth in excess of $4 million a year, while Yamaguchi probably earns about one to two million dollars annually.

"Kristi's major problem is that she's in a sport that's basically only played once every four years," explains Murphy. "In 1992, I thought she was one of the best and safest bets around, but Olympic fever cooled down very quickly." Similarly, Murphy observes that other sports Asians tend to do well in, such as tennis and golf, don't have the high ratings and constant exposure of team sports like basketball and football. "It helps to be in the spotlight," he says. Murphy feels that race is not an issue when it comes to getting endorsements. What' s most important is that athletes heed the advice of L.A. Raiders coach Al Davis, who told his players, "Just win, baby."

"As long as an athlete has the goods, he or she can be any color and be a top endorser," Murphy says, adding half-seriously that his advice to Michael is to "win Wimbledon this spring, and then follow that up with a victory in the U.S. Open." Chang, despite a string of injury- plagued years with few major tournament wins or Grand Slam finals placings, is still currently one of the world's top-ranked tennis players, and is remembered with awe for his surprise victory in the French Open in 1989.

Martin Blackman, a sports marketing consultant in New York, agrees with Murphy that the endorsement business is largely color-blind, but thinks there are reasons apart from their background why Chang and Yamaguchi haven't signed bigger deals. Blackman, the man who advised Coke in 1977 to use Pittsburgh Steeler "Mean" Joe Greene in the now- classic commercial in which Greene throws his towel to a small boy who asks for his autograph, says that while both Chang and Yamaguchi are talented and photogenic, they lack the extra spark that is needed to put an athlete over the edge in terms of endorsements. "These are two people who, without prejudice being involved, are not going to take Madison Avenue by storm," says Blackman. "Kristi doesn't compare with Chris Evert in terms of desirability, and that has nothing at all to do with her being Asian American."

Still, Blackman doesn't deny that Yamaguchi -- and Asians in general -- may face added difficulties getting endorsements from the largely white world of Madison Avenue. "To deny that certain people in corporations are racially prejudiced is a stupid denial, because we know it exists, " says Blackman. "But overall, I don't think Kristi's background was really that much of a detriment [to her endorsement career]."

When asked if he thinks Yamaguchi would be doing as well as Nancy Kerrigan if it had been her instead of Kerrigan who was whacked in the knee by cohorts of Tonya Harding, Blackman pauses a second. "Probably not," he finally answers, explaining that the contrast between the "all-American" Kerrigan and the bad-girl persona of Harding seemed to have been written by a Hollywood scriptwriter. But he adds that Yamaguchi, with her perceived "delicateness," would also have been a good foil to Harding, and would probably have done well enough with endorsements.

Of course, Asian athletes are also more likely to receive certain endorsements because of their background, and Chang is the perfect example of this. In Asia, Chang is a spokesperson for Procter and Gamble and Star TV, and even has his own line of Swatch-type watches. Each of these deals, like Chang's American deals with Reebok and Prince, are multi-year contracts in the high six-figure range.

Chang's marketing agent, Tom George, says it is precisely the qualities that make Chang a tough sell in the U.S. -- his humility, even-temper, and seriousness -- that make him such a hot property in Asia. "American markets favor the outrageous figures like Agassi and Deion Sanders and Shaq, the ones that say `I'm the one, I'm the hottest thing around, '" explains George. "Michael's traits are lost on the American market."

On the other hand, "Chang has the right type of image for [the Asian] marketplace," says George. "He's a humble champion and he personifies a very Asian concept of accomplishment through hard work."

More than anything, George feels it's the fact that Chang is so popular abroad that explains the paucity of his endorsements here. "He's just a much bigger figure there than he is here," says George. "In Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, Michael is Joe DiMaggio. Here he's just another sports figure." Thus, they concentrate their marketing efforts in Asia. George says he's never had an American company tell him they didn't want Michael because he's Asian, but he admits that "no one would ever say it anyway."

Likewise, Yuki Saegusa, Yamaguchi's co-agent at International Management Group, says she thinks Yamaguchi hasn't been hampered at all by her background: "Endorsements aren't the easiest thing to get and Kristi' s had a great career with them." Saegusa adds that Yamaguchi's background has also helped her get certain endorsements, just as it has for Chang. Last year, for example, Yamaguchi appeared in TV commercials for the Bank of Hawaii in spots designed to appeal to Hawaii's prodigious Asian population.

But the true test of America's receptivity to an Asian sports superstar will only come when an Asian American athlete is asked to carry a major, marketing-driven product like a soft drink or a sneaker. A clear-cut test case has not emerged yet because Chang, in the view of some, lacks the credentials to become a major endorser, while Yamaguchi lacks the exposure. Looking forward, however, many point to the success of black athletes as endorsers and spokespeople to show that there' s hope for minority athletes to succeed in the world of sports marketing. "Why don't people have a problem with Michael Jordan's ethnicity?" asks Murphy. "It's because what he's about is not his color. It's his game and his character, and it's the same for people like Chang and Yamaguchi....There are still changes to be made, but for the mainstream person in society today, I think that color doesn't mean a damn."

To others, though, the comparison between the situation of black athletes and Asian athletes is not a valid one. Blacks have long been viewed as trendsetters in fashion and music, which strengthens their appeal as spokespeople, while Asians are still viewed in stereotypical ways. Perhaps the best answer to the question of whether America is willing to accept Asians as athletes and, just as significantly, buy products from them, is that it will take time, just as it did for black athletes to get endorsements in the 1970s. Says Blackman, whose Coke commercial is widely-credited for breaking the doors open for African Americans as sports endorsers: "If you look at television today, the major sports endorsers are black. But if you're talking about the 1970s...you're talking about a very different era.

"What companies like Coke and Nike have shown," adds Blackman, "is that if you have the personality and the charisma, you will move product and people will believe in you, and I think that's true for Asian- Americans as well."

If and when an Asian American athlete makes it in a more marketing- friendly sport like football or basketball -- or if Chang heeds his marketers' advice and breaks through to win Wimbledon or the U.S. Open -- perhaps then we'll get a chance to see if Blackman is right.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Articles

Bio

Charities

Childhood

Endorsements

Fun Stuff

His Faith

Hobbies & Interests

Interviews

Live Reports

Meet the Chang Gang

Merchandise

News Archives

Other Michael Chang Links

Picture Archives

Quotes

Timeline

TV Transcripts

Video & Audio Clips

Sign | View the guestbook

Japanese version