A BRAND SLAM
Marcus Stroman says he was forced to choose between Jordan and his HDMH brand,
Marcus Stroman finished 2017 with a career high 13 wins, his first Gold Glove and the feeling he could post even bigger numbers this year. But the Jays ace enters 2018 minus a high-profile member of his off-field team.
Stroman tweeted late last month that he had split with the Jordan Brand, the Nike subsidiary with whom he had partnered since February 2016. His post quoted a tweet in which NBA star and Jordan Brand ambassador Russell Westbrook promoted his personal apparel line, while hinting the company had forced Stroman to choose between them and his personal brand, HDMH, which stands for Height Doesn’t Measure Heart.
“Crazy that I had to end my partnership with my @Jumpman23 family because they didn’t want me to spread the message of #HDMH to the world,” Stroman tweeted. “Hurts beyond belief. Either way, the climb continues!”
The breakup illustrates the minefield of overlapping sponsorships that brand-conscious athletes are forced to navigate.
Stroman’s falling-out with Jordan Brand is a case in point. While the pitcher compared his situation to Westbrook’s, the two athletes have starkly different relationships with the apparel maker.
Westbrook signed a 10-year contract extension with Jordan Brand last September. Salary details weren’t revealed, but several published reports described the deal as the richest in the company’s history.
Jordan Brand says its partnership with Stroman was much more informal than Westbrook’s deal. “While Marcus was a member of the Jordan Brand family, he wasn’t under contract,” a Jordan Brand spokesperson wrote in an email to the Star. “Beyond that, we don’t dis- close specific terms of agreements with Jordan Brand athletes.”
Stroman’s representatives declined an interview request.
Sports marketing experts say that Stroman’s case illustrates how tricky relationships between athletes and advertisers can become.
“Stroman’s brand is authenticity. And if he’s anything, he’s consistent and frequent with this brand,” said Sunny Pathak, head of NewPath Sports and Entertainment, which has worked with the pitcher in the past. “It’s commendable for an athlete. (He) essentially has two fulltime jobs.”
Since arriving in Toronto in 2014, Stroman, who is listed at five-footeight, has crafted a brand as an undersized overachiever. If some observers find Stroman’s on-field intensity abrasive, the Duke University grad has embraced the backlash, proclaiming on his Twitter bio that he’s “doing it with a smile and a chip on my shoulder.”
And his list of corporate partners has grown to include American Express, Lyft and BioSteel, each of them happy to leverage Stroman’s social media reach. His Twitter account has roughly 453,000 followers, while more than 496,000 people follow him on Instagram.
Stroman’s BioSteel deal highlights how crowded sponsorship categories can become. The Toronto-based sports drink and supplement maker signed the Jays right-hander in January 2016, and quickly featured him in social and traditional media campaigns. When Stroman pitched in 2016, BioSteel would sponsor Sportsnet’s game broadcasts.
But the Jays’ dugout and bullpen feature Powerade, supplied under the team’s partnership with CocaCola. Meanwhile, promotional photos published under Stroman’s BioSteel deal featured plenty of product, and the pitcher in a blue jersey, but no Jays logos.
Less than two years after announc- ing the deal, BioSteel appears to have distanced itself from Stroman. The pitcher last appeared on the company’s Instagram feed in early November and his profile has disappeared from its website. BioSteel won’t comment on whether Stroman is still under contract.
“Marcus is a pleasure to work with, but as a private company we do not disclose business specifics,” BioSteel CEO John Celenza said in a statement emailed to the Star.
The complicated relationship between personal and organizational sponsors isn’t unique to Stroman.
Gatorade-sponsored sprinter Andre De Grasse rehabbed a hamstring injury at a BioSteel-branded facility and some of his Instagram stories captured the rival brand’s logo. Those posts were designed to vanish after 24 hours, but the skilfully edited video still appearing on his feed crops out BioSteel signs while featuring De Grasse’s Gatorade towels and water bottles.
Likewise, De Grasse’s Puma contract includes apparel but doesn’t prevent him from partnering with clothier Harry Rosen.
“Puma doesn’t make suits, so it was an easy decision to make,” said De Grasse’s marketing agent, Brian Levine, the head of Envision Sports & Entertainment. He suggested the key is to find space to operate within subcategories. “What we try to do is honour the category exclusivity Puma has.”
Stroman’s Twitter post indicates Jordan didn’t allow him that leeway, even as Westbrook promotes a clothing line unrelated to Nike. Jordan also sponsors two boxers, middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin and retired light-heavyweight champ Andre Ward, who each sell apparel emblazoned with their logos on their personal websites.
Pathak says that, at 26, Stroman still has time to earn the type of profile that allows athletes like Westbrook to promote their own brands without alienating sponsors.
“He needs to be an all-star. He needs to win 20 games,” Pathak said. “HDMH grows if he’s an all-star.”