The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 372 Li

"This is fucking unfair. Why should we have to play in Portland for Christmas instead of you guys going to Chicago? Look at how many Christmas games you've played in Portland. Fuck, I don't even know how the league schedules games."

"What's unfair about it? You guys don't have any influence in Chicago. Everyone wants to go to the Chicago Cubs, not the Bulls. Besides, Chicago Stadium is one of the worst away games I've ever played, even worse than Boston Garden. The toilets there are awful. Next time I play in Chicago, I'll ask to use the fans' toilets."

At a bowling alley in downtown Portland, Gan Guoyang and Jordan argued about the fairness of the Christmas Day game schedule while changing their shoes.

Jordan was clearly unhappy about being scheduled to play an away game in Portland for Christmas. Who would have thought that he would have to go out to play a game on Christmas Day, and in another division so far away?

This is unprecedented in NBA history, and it happened this year because the matchup between Jordan and Gan Guoyang was so captivating that the league needed to give them a sufficiently dazzling stage.

"You don't celebrate Christmas at all, so it doesn't matter whether you play away or at home."

"You're talking nonsense. If I weren't playing Christmas Day, I'd be going back to San Francisco to visit my family and then go to a friend's party for barbecue, instead of fucking playing bowling with you here. Who the hell arranged this? Thank goodness it wasn't golf. If anyone had arranged golf for me, I'd have smashed their head in with a golf club."

Tonight's meeting between the two was not private, but a business event arranged by Nike and Avia.

In addition to executives from Gan Guoyang, Jordan, Nike, and Avia, those present included Portland celebrities, major distributors, advertisers, and more.

Nike originally wanted to arrange golf balls, which is Jordan's favorite, but Gan Guoyang hates playing golf, so they changed it to bowling.

As for why Nike and Avia would collaborate on a business event, that's a very interesting story.

Originally, the two companies were competitors, but during Avia's trip to China in 1985, she brought Nike along to work together. After sharing resources, the two companies suddenly realized that they were actually very complementary.

Nike has excellent distributor resources and a global presence, especially in the Asia-Pacific region where it started early. At the same time, Nike invests heavily in advertising, maintains close ties with major advertising agencies in New York, and has good relationships with newspapers and television stations, with its reach extending throughout the United States. These are all things that a small company like Avia lacks.

In the past two years, Avia has leveraged resources like those from Nike to greatly expand its business. They have improved their distributor system, explored overseas markets, and established relationships with many media outlets, gradually becoming a very influential sports brand in the United States.

And what does Avia have? Avia has Gan Guoyang.

That's right, this is Avia's only good chip, her only trump card.

While Nike is a strong player, it is far from being the leader in the sports brand industry.

Especially in the basketball field they are trying to cultivate, Converse is a well-established and deeply rooted company.

Nike and Avia, both based in Portland, joined forces, with the second and third largest companies teaming up to challenge the top spot.

As long as they can kill their boss, they can share his corpse. After they've eaten their fill, it's not too late for them to fight to the death.

Therefore, the two companies are both competitors and partners, just like Gan Guoyang and Jordan, who are rivals on the court but friends off the court.

This event was spearheaded by Nike, and it's a huge honor to have Gan Guoyang attend an event in Portland.

Now that Gan Guoyang is here, it's impossible for the Avia brand representatives not to come.

"You're such a bumpkin, you don't even like playing golf. You're definitely no good at it, I can crush you in golf."

Jordan was a passionate golf enthusiast. Sometimes he would get so addicted to golf that he would gamble with people for real money instead of just playing around.

Gan Guoyang put on his shoes and laughed, "In our socialist country, we don't play golf, a luxury sport that wastes land and water resources. Sports that the people can participate in are my favorite. Tonight, let's see who beats whom in bowling."

The two became the center of attention as soon as they arrived at the bowling alley, and their subsequent match was fierce and exciting, seemingly a rehearsal for the Christmas game.

Gan Guoyang is a master bowler. He relies on sheer force and never tries to bowl with curves. He always uses the heaviest ball, swings his long arm, and the ball flies towards the pins while skimming the floor.

Sometimes you even wonder if the ball rolled over or flew through the air; it was incredibly fast, incredibly accurate, and had a very high success rate.

Round after round, Gan Guoyang made several perfect shots in a row, and his score quickly rose far ahead, leaving Jordan no match for him.

Jordan only had a slight dabbling in bowling; he could play it, but it was far less impressive than his golf skills, since golf is used for gambling.

After the first game, Gan Guoyang won decisively, and the audience burst into applause. This made Jordan feel embarrassed, and he said that he had found the trick and wanted to play another game.

Gan Guoyang played along, continuing to try and create miracles with great force. His ball flew out with tremendous force, leaving the onlookers breathless.

If such a heavy ball isn't controlled properly and flies off course, it could randomly hit a lucky spectator and send them to their death.

Fortunately, Gan Guoyang possesses strong finger and arm strength, making bowling as easy for him as throwing a baseball.

Jordan, unsurprisingly, lost another bowl. Still competitive, he wanted to play more, but Gan Guoyang said, "I know you, Michael. You want to beat me, but I advise you to save it for tomorrow's game. Even though you won't win, there's no need to waste time bowling. I'll play cards with you later." If it were anyone else, Jordan would never have given up so easily.

But Gan Guoyang... well, forget it, that guy's a monster.

You could tell from the force with which he threw the bowling pins that he could smash them to pieces.

After the bowling match, Nike executives introduced Jordan and Gan Guoyang to Jim Rieswald, creative director of their advertising partner, Wieden-Kennedy.

Nike has invested heavily in advertising. Their main advertiser is New York's Chat-day, after all, New York is the advertising capital of the United States, and most of Nike and Air Jordan's advertising campaigns are handled by these New York advertising moguls.

Wieden-Kennedy was just a small partner company that took on some of the business in the Oregon area.

But this time, Nike hopes that Wieden Kennedy can complete a major advertising campaign—to have Jordan and Gan Guoyang film an ad together.

Although the two belong to different companies, Nike wanted to leverage Gan Guoyang's reputation, and they, based in Portland, were extremely envious of him.

In order to leverage Gan Guoyang's name, they went so far as to introduce Weiden Kennedy to Avia and share some advertising resources with the unsophisticated Avia.

This time, Gan Guoyang and Jordan collaborated on an advertisement, which was planned to be divided into two parts: the first part promoted Nike, and the second part promoted Avia. The two sides cooperated and leveraged each other's strengths.

“We want to create a second Magician vs. Bird pairing to surpass Converse,” Jim Rieswald stated bluntly.

Gan Guoyang objected, saying, "Michael is far inferior to me; he doesn't even have a single championship."

No one laughed. They looked at Jordan, who wasn't angry. He said, "Don't be so smug. I'll have everything I'm entitled to. You bitch, you're always showing off your championships."

"That's a fact. You've never even made it to the regional finals. How can you be on par with me? That would only lower my standards."

"You're just luckier than me."

"Don't joke around, Michael, you know you can't beat me."

Jim Rieswald looked helplessly at Nike's boss, Phil Knight.

Phil Knight said, "It's okay, it's just friends bickering all the time, they always do that."

Jim nodded and said, "This might be a good advertising idea: two friends who are always bickering and competing, but have a good relationship."

Avia's owner, Jerry Stubbfield, agreed, saying, "It's just like the relationship between Nike and Avia!"

Phil Knight smiled, but in his heart he thought, "If it weren't for Forrest Gump, who the hell would be friends with you guys!"

Stubbfield was equally aware that Nike had been trying every means to poach Gan Guoyang, and that their collaboration with Avia was a prelude to building relationships.

Stubbfield knew he would absolutely not let Gan Guoyang go, and he would do everything in his power to keep Gan Guoyang at Avia once the contract expired.

In an effort to curry favor with Gan Guoyang, Avia signed Gan Guoyang's teammate Drexler and Gan Guoyang's good friend John Stockton this summer.

Stockton is currently a relatively unknown player in the league, a white backup point guard with little public attention and no commercial value. Avia signed him simply to please Gan Guoyang.

Although Gan Guoyang and Jordan bickered, and Gan Guoyang looked down on Jordan, he eventually agreed to shoot this advertisement together for promotion.

Gan Guoyang knew that Avia's promotion was indeed a weakness, and she needed to leverage Nike's resources.

Rieswald then said he had selected two directors to be in charge of the two parts of the commercial.

The Nike segment of the previous episode was directed by Spike Lee, the Black director who also directed the independent film "She's Gotta Have It".

In this movie, Air Jordan sneakers are a very important prop, and Spike Lee is a big fan of Jordan and Air Jordan, so he understands the significance of Jordan and Air Jordan.

The person in charge of the Avia segment in the next episode is a film school graduate who is completely unknown in New York, has no directing experience, and only submitted a script after seeing an advertisement for Weydon Kennedy in a magazine.

Rieswald showed Gan Guoyang the man's resume and said, "He's Chinese and says he's a fan of yours, but he doesn't have any directing experience. I don't know if he's suitable for you?"

Gan Guoyang glanced at the man's resume and said, "No problem, he'll do."

This person's name is Li An.

(End of this chapter)