Advertising Age argues this week in an online story that market size does not affect endorsement potential in the NBA and NFL. It proves once again that the New York Knicks need LeBron James far more than he needs them.
Being in Cleveland has not had a negative impact on LeBron James' attractiveness to advertisers. This ad features a likeness of James and Yao Ming in an Olympic-themed ad in 2008.
The biggest basketball star in New York in this generation was Patrick Ewing of the Knicks. He took the team to one NBA Finals and lost. He also would probably have taken a co-starring role with Muhammad Ali in a Roach Motel commercial if it had been offered to him.
But it was not.
Then there was Jason Kidd, playing in the nearby Meadowlands with a New Jersey Nets team he took to back-to-back appearances in the NBA Finals and lost both. Kidd made a great eye test commercial for a credit card company, in which he faced the other way and read the chart's letters with the "eyes in the back of his head." In the same ad, he also alerted teammate Richard Jefferson that Jefferson's car was being towed on the street behind him.
That was probably the only memorable commercial starring Kidd.
Kidd and Ewing are two certain future Hall of Famers, who, when playing in New York -- the supposed cradle of endorsement wealth -- managed to get enough commercials to edge "diddly squat" as their marketing share by a nose.
It turns out, according to an article in the online edition of Advertising Age that "geography is irrelevant," at least in the view of Darin David, an advertising executive who evaluates the appeal of potential endorsers.
The size of the market was important "30 years ago," the story argues, but not so much now.
It means that, as aggravating as that New York Yankees cap perched on LeBron James' head was during the Indians-Yankees game here three years ago, New York is not the marketing bonanza many fans think it is.
With the Indians playing the Yankees this weekend in New York, now is the time to note that baseball -- the only major team sport without a salary cap -- is different. The story cites the "disparity in exposure and competitiveness" between big-market and small-market teams in baseball as the underlying reason for geography's much larger role in creating marketing possibilities in it.
But competitive parity, says Ad Age, lessens the dominance of big markets in the NFL and NBA.
In the NFL, although both top conference seeds played in the Super Bowl last season, the very presence of the team that won it all, the New Orleans Saints, actually buttressed the parity argument.
In the NBA, the Boston Celtics' presence in the playoff final four is a surprise, but the Phoenix Suns' getting there is flabbergasting. Can we have a show of hands for those who thought at the All-Star break, when Amar'e Stoudemire was on the trading block, that the Suns would get this far? Anybody?
The Suns' signature player, point guard Steve Nash, is a fascinating man, at times outspoken, often engaged in liberal political causes. This might make him a little too divisive for national advertisers.
But the thrust of the story is still accurate. The endorsement hog of our time in team sports is the football's likable Peyton Manning, who plays in Indianapolis. In the clever commercials, Manning projects a genial, self-deprecating image.
Maybe even winning doesn't matter all that much, although the endorser's team has to be in the mix, as the Cavaliers have been with James.
The visibility conferred by television appearances on a good team, plus a personality a little sunnier than that of the glowering Ewing, have more importance than market size.
The story notes that James' impending free agency serves to hype his endorsement possibilities by keeping his name in the news cycle constantly. But it neglects to say, purely in terms of his potential basketball contract, that the Cavs can pay him considerably more than any other suitors.
Another point the story misses is that the big untapped markets are all overseas now. Kids buying sneakers in China, Brazil and India don't care where their hero plays.
Here, of course, where the hometown roots of the global icon seem to be strong and deep, that matter is a little larger concern.