Without John Wall and Yi Jianlian, the Wizards’ marketing reach beyond D.C. would be pretty much zilch. No sponsor will touch Gilbert Arenas (and rumors of him signing with Under Armour have yet to come to fruition — they, like any other potential sponsor of Arenas, would be wise to wait and see what he has left basketball-wise), and no one else on the roster has much pull with advertising dollars. Any other lottery pick, had the lottery balls/envelopes/combinations not fallen in the Wizards’ favor, would have brought a small fraction of Wall’s marketing clout, if any.
Yep, the respective arrivals of Wall and Yi have paid immediate dividends for Ted Leonsis’ bunch. So keeping this in mind, let’s run down some of the recent marketing buzz surrounding the Wizards’ main names in the selling game.
In case you haven’t noticed, media access to Wall takes a different, more controlled path … mostly resulting in his very own media session before and after games like head coach Flip Saunders. All other players are made available in the locker room in both instances on an ‘as-the-media-can-get-to-them’ basis.
Tags: Andray Blatche, china, chinatown, gatorade, John Wall, reebok, voit, yao ming, yi jianlian
