Michael Jordan's appearance at Roger Federer's first-round match at the U.S. Open wasn't a simple case of one sports legend cheering on another.
MARKETING ACE: Michael Jordan's appearance at Roger Federer's U.S. Open match Tuesday was a product placement coup for Nike. Reuters
Instead, it was a carefully arranged marketing grand slam for sponsor NikeInc. —a product- placement coup that pulled in both stars and piqued the interest of the ESPN broadcast team.
The point of Mr. Jordan's presence at the match, coordinated by Nike executives, was to promote a new limited edition of Mr. Federer's line of tennis shoes. The white and cement-patterned NikeCourt Zoom Vapor AJ3's feature Air Jordan styling and logos. Mr. Federer wore them in Tuesday's match, and they went on sale Wednesday.
As Mr. Federer easily disposed of unranked Australian opponent Marinko Matosevic, the shoes became a topic of conversation, with ESPN devoting more than two minutes of airtime to talk about them with both the tennis star and the basketball legend.
"How sweet is it to have those shoes?" an ESPN analyst asked Mr. Federer in an interview following his victory. "I have old Chuck Taylors, but you've got sweet MJs."
Roger Federer's new tennis shoes were the talk of broadcasters and basketball legend Michael Jordan. Getty Images
Tony Godsick, Mr. Federer's agent, said that the two athletes were brought together for the first time by Nike executives on Monday as a celebration of the shoe's debut, which borrowed design elements from the Air Jordan 3.
Mr. Godsick said the on-air chatter about the shoes wasn't to his knowledge coordinated between the athletes and the network. But with Mr. Federer winning easily in straight sets—6-3, 6-4, 7-6—"It wasn't like the match was so exciting, so there was a buzz about, "Why is Jordan there?" he said.
Amy Phillips, a spokeswoman for ESPN, said the network's interview with Mr. Jordan "wasn't part of any larger sponsorship or ad buy." ESPN was notified earlier Tuesday that Mr. Jordan would be joining Mr. Federer's guest box, and subsequently requested to interview the basketball star, she said.
Nike didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.
There is a wide gulf between demand for basketball shoes and tennis shoes. Retail sales of basketball shoes rose 20% last year to $4.5 billion, with the Jordan line accounting for more than half of the market, according to SportsOneSource analyst Matt Powell. Among retailers tracked by SportsOneSource—which doesn't follow specialty tennis stores—sales of tennis shoes came to less than $50 million.
Nike's cross-marketing ploy seems to be working. At the Nike Lab store in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood, the Zoom Vapor AJ3s sold out within about an hour Wednesday, a store employee who answered the phone said.
The shoes weren't available at the Nike kiosk at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y., where the U.S. Open is held, but an employee said Wednesday they had been receiving many requests.
Nike spends billions each year on what it calls demand creation, much of it on contracts with elite athletes and sports leagues.
"He's smooth," Mr. Jordan said of Mr. Federer in a conversation with ESPN analyst Mary Joe Fernandez while watching the match progress below him. "He makes the shoes look a lot better."