Streetball: The Big Picture, Part 2 - A 1UP classic from May 27, 2005

The streetball game is sending out mixed messages. The saying is power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believe that money corrupts as well, and it has corrupted the street game. But where does the money come from and what exactly is becoming corrupt? The short answer is the "industry" is changing the game. That industry is bigger than just the shoe or apparel manufacturers. Everyone from food sellers to the videogame industry now have stakes in streetball. The problem with so many people investing in streetball is that we (the audience) are now getting mixed messages as to what the definition of streetball is.

In recent years it has been the entertainment industry that has sent the most mixed messages. When we turn on the TV or go to a movie we are now more likely to see streetball than ever before. From inline skate-wearing streetball (who came up with that crap?) players doing a McDonalds spot to an MTV reality series. We are being sold streetball as the new form of entertainment and pop culture.

Before streetball became a part of mainstream culture it was celebrated as a subculture. Those that keep tabs on the industry know that Nike or all people had a hand in both the pro and street players. They ran underground, grassroots campaigns, in select markets like a particular town in New York. Local legends, old-school playground legends, they would get some shine in an ad campaign, never to be show to the reset of the world. For all their subtleties Nike had as much invested in the street game as they has in the more popular NBA game.

One of the very first campaigns that a young Lebron James was signed up for was the host of the Battlegrounds Tournament. He had yet to set any sort of scoring records, and was many years from winning a championship. Nike wanted to make sure that they kept the phenom in the eyes of the public. So some of his earliest media training was breaking down the street game to audiences in a weekly televised tournament. 

Nike wasn't the only one that noticed an explosion in the popularity in streetball. In an attempt to catch a slice of the pie Reebok and the NBA partnered up to sponsor the Entertainers Basketball Classic (EBC) games at the Holcombe Rucker park in New York. The EBC tournaments had been going on for decades. They were a way for celebrities, musicians, pro, and am basketball players to get together. Big name artists bankrolled the best players to come in from all over to form mega teams. Heated rivalries from the various burroughs grew more intense as some rappers did everything they could to secure pro talent. The addition of shoe sponsorships, and the NBA only raised their status. This partnership saw games broadcast from the Mecca of street tournaments and a series of tapes produced marketed at people that were into the AND1 mix tapes.

The EBC tapes were entertaining, but also very selective in the message. Many players and organizers in the EBC called the AND1 tours and players fake and choreographed. Going as far as to compare them to clowns. By branding themselves with the EBC and the local legends like Alimoe and the Bone Collector, Reebok hoped to gain some street credit.

This partnership seemed short-lived because many other mix tapes had begun popping up everywhere. In effect watering down the work of AND1 and Reebok. Alimoe was quickly added to the AND1 mix tape tour and the Bone Collector was picked up in the second generation of the Nike Freestyle campaign. Fans of streetball were now getting mixed messages, was the AND1 tour phony? If so why would a well respected player like Alimoe, who was proclaimed to be "Better than Jordan" sign up for it? If Nike is supposed to be too "Madison Avenue" how did they end up with the Bone Collector?

AND1 was leading the media blitz by taking their tour around the country and having the stops filmed by ESPN for a new reality series titled Streetball. In effect it began giving fans what they wanted in big venues, and televising them for those that couldn't make the live stops. The first season of Streetball was so successful that ESPN and AND1 decided to follow-up in 2004. The mix tapes had now become a television phenomenon.

As I mentioned before it took many years for AND1 to build a niche and the mix tape following took a slice of the basketball pie from Nike. Fans of streetball tried to support the company that supported street players. Nike decided to move their marketing strategies from grassroots to global in regards to streetball. Wanting to show how much "cooler" they were at the game Nike spent millions advertising a Freestyle campaign featuring a collaboration of street legends, choreographers and musicians.

A must-read for basketball fans is Sole Provider. The book is a Nike basketball history written by Scoop Jackson. Rarely seen grassroots and more mainstream campaigns are highlighted in the book.

The Freestyle commercial was very entertaining, won several awards and introduced the country to a freestyle genius named Luis "Trikz" De Silva, more on him and the other players in the future posts. What you probably didn't see was the Hip Hoop campaign that toured Asia and the Freestyle campaign that toured Europe following the original Freestyle ad in early 2001-2002. During the campaign many of the freestylers featured in the commercials toured the countries and promoted Nike and the freestyle movement. There were freestyle face-off events, contests and prizes for players with the best handle at the events. NOTE: Basketball fans that think they have seen every great freestyler, routine and footage absolutely have to get their hands on the rare promotional items that went with these international tours.

Right on the heels of the Freestyle campaign Nike came out with the Battlegrounds series. Proving that Nike had a hold on both the entertainment aspect as well as real-street aspect of basketball. Both campaigns were much larger and farther reaching than any of the grassroots campaigning that they had done. This was the series that featured a young Lebron James fresh from his prep school right into the NBA.

The original Battlegrounds tournament in 2002 was a series of contests on the west and east coast. The game was played in a half-court, chain link cage with a 10-second shot clock and 12 minute games. Winners advanced and losers went home. Through this system each coast crowned a king of the court. This king was awarded a crown made of chain-link fence, a platinum and diamond dog tag, a platinum collection Nike shorts, shirt and limited edition shoes. All this plus a one-year contract with Nike, $5000 in prize money and a billboard overlooking their court.

These two bold actions by Nike made the other shoe and apparel manufacturers take notice. Perhaps they too had been sleeping on the streetball game for too long. Unfortunately for fans of the mix tapes and streetball, Nike did not release a tape of the tournament or any details aside from the news in a few magazines. Nike seemed to be trying to expose the street scene and keep it under wraps at the same time. They were shrewd in their soft goods releases. Nike wanted to associate legendary basketball courts with the brand. These courts had existed before the swoosh, and were witness to some of the greatest games ever played. Nike could sell tons of merchandise, and possibly pay a small fee to a city, while claiming they had always supported the playground game. This made more sense than designing a campaign around individual personalities, like AND1 did with the Mix Tape.

The east and west coast champs never did battle to determine the best in the US, Fans and critics alike chided Nike for the decision. However in 2003 Nike decided to increase the stakes by hosting the Battlegrounds tournament in several major cities and then having the winners in those cities, plus the kings from the year before, battle to see who was the undisputed "king of the courts."

The winner both years turned out to be Erron Maxey of Los Angeles. His prize in 2003 doubled in cash value from a year before, plus he was crowned the King of Kings. Also unlike the year before the games and outcome were televised on MTV as a special program. Now Nike joined the EBC and AND1 on the streetball broadcast bandwagon. In 2004 Maxey was dethroned by a Frenchman under suspicious circumstances, so reported Scoop Jackson. Now the global push was on to unify the streetball fans. In this way apparel manufacturers could create an entirely new market. People that weren't necessarily following pro basketball, but wanted to be seen as down with the street game wanted their own shoes, shirts, and other soft goods.

One question remained. How was the country, not just the streetball fan, thinking about all of this exposure? Bean counters, focus groups and test marketers aside, the dollar does all the talking! Tapes from Reebok, AND1 and Nike eventually made their way to retail outlets like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart. They they sold better than most movies over the next few years.

Now kids everywhere in the country, or up north in Canada or down south in Mexico had exposure to this cultural movement. People nowhere near a major city, began mimicking their newfound streetball heroes. Dressing like them, talking like them, practicing their handles and even giving themselves nicknames. Underground mix tapes began popping up on the internet. Those that understood the game, grew up with the original mix tapes and stories from the streets produced some of the best tapes, like those from the Notic in Canada. The impact on the young players from Vancouver can never be understated, especially in internet circles. Kids like King Handles, Johnny Blaze, Goosebumps, and Disaster grew up on the Mix Tapes, and created their own following thanks to YouTube. Fans of the game never forgot, and that was why the Notic crew reunited in 2021, and there is even a documentary on them becoming famous, and disappearing. 

Sadly not every independent basketball video series was as good as those from Vancouver. Others, many-many others following the Notic were so poor in quality, and talent that they shall remain nameless. Because of the success of the tapes, tournaments, and online exposure streetball and Hip Hop became the same thing in the eyes of many followers. This in turn affected the way that players all over the world wanted to represent them. For instance in China there is a strong streetball following. They watch many of the same mix tapes that people in the US do. They listen to some of the same music, wear the same clothes and even try to incorporate slang into their vocabulary. 

The presence of streetball has only grown since this blog was written in 2005. There was a young man that became hooked on the early tapes, and tour, Wu You aka MoreFree is the Chinese legend that helped spread the gospel overseas. He would challenge visiting NBA players to 1-on-1 battles, and dazzle them with his skills. As audiences learned to differentiate streetball from traditional basketball then local courts started building reputations, just as they had done in New York, Chicago, and LA. Dongdan Court in China is considered the Holy Land. When the summers heat up you can find the best players competing  at Dongdan.

A Westerner might call the Chinese "biters" or just laugh at their attempts to incorporate Black fashion, and language into their lexicon. But then again where did they get the idea that streetball is about fashion and tricks? It has a lot to do with how the west presents themselves in the mix tapes and of course in the entertainment industry. Asia is quickly getting sold on the idea that streetball is about entertainment and not basketball. The big shoe companies learned that there is no one approach that can appeal to all audiences. They have to be sensitive to differences in culture, language, art, music, and presentation. Nike couldn't simply release Battlegrounds merch in mainland China featuring the name of Holocombe Rucker Park in Harlem. The Chinese have no point of reference to NYC. Dongdan Court on the other hand would make more sense. That was why they began creating custom streetball campaigns in their biggest markets. The Beijing 99 campaign by Nike incorporated many symbolic characters from classic tradition, and had the best street players from around the country compete.

Today the legacy of street players earning their names and respect on the blacktop is virtually gone. Courts that used to be the stuff of legend are now on cable, and satellite. Games are broadcast online every summer all over the world. With thousands of games, places, and players to choose from then why would the Rucker stay relevant? Or does the saturation of summer tournaments the world over make the EBC more important now? What is important now changes depending on whom you talk to.

The biggest legends in the history of the game are not even spoken of in most parts of the world. There are a lot of ignorant people in the US as well that don't know why names like "Pee Wee" Kirkland or "Fly" Williams are revered in certain streetball circles. Don't blame China if they have no concept of the ghetto, or hood mentality. They dress and act the part because they are trying to be part of a scene. That's the scene they see in music videos and mix tapes. Whether that scene is real and that message is correct is entirely up to them. In some way those Chinese streetballers cannot identify with their own culture. It doesn't reflect the freedom, creativity, and self-expression celebrated in global street culture.

The love, and support that Chinese developers have with the playground game can be seen in the mobile, and PC games they developed. The Freestyle: Street Basketball games, and Basketrio titles keep the genre alive whereas similar titles from the US came, and went in the mid 2000s. They also began designing toys, and vinyl figures inspired by basketball legends.

Every nation observes the culture of streetball a little bit differently. In Italy one of the popular crews is known as Da Move. It seems that the Nike Freestyle campaign went right to the heads of these players "Aig $cream (ice cream?), Da Helicopta, Downtown, Flashback, Jack Da Rippa and K-lean." The interpretation of streetball is unique for these players, to the best of my knowledge they were the first to take the freestyle concept to the clubs. That's right, dance clubs! They'll show up and do some freestyle basketball and everything seems to be cool with other people at the club and even the club owners.

Da Move sets are well rehearsed and akin to a show that Nike would put on with their freestyle team. They have even begun performing as basketball halftime acts. It is unknown if something like that would ever fly in the US however. Again there is nobody to blame about the way Italian street crews are interpreting streetball other than the media (internet included) from the US and more recently Canada. They will mimic and try to incorporate into their own culture the things that they are shown and taught.

Nike for its part in trying to preserve and share the game may be sending out the biggest mixed signals. Their global Freestyle tours and campaigns are fresh and entertaining, however they immediately follow up the venue with a Battlegrounds tour. So now countries like Asia and Europe are being sent the message "Freestyle, because style isn't free." The very next day they roll through town and send an opposite message "There is a difference between a playground entertainer and a playground legend. Entertainers entertain, legends ball. And that status must be earned on the streets."

Are players supposed to assume that streetball is either one or the other? Can they be both a freestyler and streetball player? Are there penalties for being a freestyler and not a person that plays basketball? Is earning a name more important than naming yourself? Who cares what these players do? If you are reading this then you should care what other players and countries are doing with the streetball game. Moreover we should not get so hung up on what the players do but look at what the industry is doing to perpetuate these confusing messages. Every action has a consequence, even if it is small in and of itself, the bigger picture is made up and dictated by all of these individual actions. If some kid in China has braided hair and is wearing a do' rag while downloading Jay-Z MP3's and Hot Sauce clips, then the big picture of streetball is going to be changed. The actions taken by the industry make even bigger impacts to streetball. We'll explore these in the next part.

Did you ever play basketball? Or any basketball video games? Were you a fan of the Mix Tape Tour, or freestyle basketball? Or is this the first time you're hearing about it? Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!