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Abstract
In the 1980s and early 90s, American professional basketball benefited from a steady rise in its popularity and appeal. With Michael Jordan's retirement after the 1998 season, however, a new era was in progress. Incoming NBA players like Latrell Sprewell, Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson brought energetic, but polarizing, personas to professional courts. Cultural critics Todd Boyd and Kenneth Shropshire examined the contemporary media reaction to these players, which exploited racially-coded terms like “thug” and “gangster” to disproportionately demonize black athletes’ transgressions. Their analysis provides a window onto an era that saw several upstart athletic apparel companies capitalize on a new wave of distinctly “authentic” and "urban" aesthetics. And1, a sportswear company that emerged in 1993, fought a vigorous and creative underdog campaign against sports marketing giants like Nike to define basketball style. And1 peaked as the number two domestic retailer of basketball shoes behind Nike in the early 2000s, yet the company has not been sufficiently examined as a successful brand or countercultural force.
This essay examines graphic design and advertising that channeled an urban, black anti-hero aesthetic in basketball. Companies like And1 rose up to challenge established sports marketing businesses, and in so doing redefined the image of the basketball hero for a new generation of players and fans. For a brief period the streetball game rivaled the professional league in popularity and influence; And1’s marketing and aesthetic were pivotal aspects of this transition. And1's branding efforts can be examined through Douglas Holt and Douglas Cameron’s “cultural innovation theory,” which proposes that subcultural brands like And1 fulfill “unmet ideological desires” in their audiences. And1 did so by positioning itself as a credible, vested member of the organically formed streetball community and exploiting such a strategy to assume a posture of street reality that was exceptional.
Notes
1. Boyd, “Preface – The Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told,” xii.
2. Wolff, “The Other Basketball,” 66.
3. Holt and Cameron, Cultural Strategy, 8.
4. Holt and Cameron, Cultural Strategy, 221.
5. Holt and Cameron, Cultural Strategy, 36.
6. Holt, “Why Do Brands Cause Trouble?,” 84.
7. Holt, “Why Do Brands Cause Trouble?,” 84.
8. Wolff, “The Other Basketball,” 66.
9. Wolff, “The Other Basketball,” 66.
10. Novak, The Joy of Sports, 114.
11. Boyd, “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems,” 63.
12. Weiss, “The Selling of Latrell Sprewell.”
13. Weiss, “The Selling of Latrell Sprewell.”
14. Majors and Billson, Cool Pose, 2.
15. Majors and Billson, Cool Pose, 27.
16. Wise, “His Game,” D1.
17. Wise, “His Game.”
18. Jensen, 2009.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Bobby Campbell
Bobby Campbell is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Bobby graduated with a BA in Philosophy from Transylvania University in Kentucky and began a career in 1999 as a full-time graphic designer and creative director. In 2003, he returned to school and completed an MFA in Studio Art & Design at the University of Michigan. Bobby travelled to Dublin, Ireland, for a year-long residency at the National College of Art & Design as part of a Fulbright Fellowship for 2006–7. Prior to teaching at UNC Charlotte, Bobby was an Assistant Professor at Morehead State University in Kentucky. He develops community-engaged graphic design with Charlotte partners and writes on related design issues.