By MARK AGEE and NATHANIEL JONES
Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram Staff Writers
To basketball fan Domanick Murphy, the NBA's ban on popular hip-hop fashions such as diamond-encrusted medallions and sideways ball caps is about more than just a change of clothes.
It's how some black people, especially young black people, dress, said the 37-year-old Arlington resident, who was watching a rerun of an NBA game at Bobby Valentine Sports Gallery Cafe in south Arlington on a recent lunch break. "How can you tell a whole generation of black kids that what they wear is wrong?"
Some players and fans argue that the new dress code that takes effect today is condescending at best, racist at worst. The rules mandated by Commissioner David Stern have sparked barstool debates that separate fans along racial and generational lines.
Players are now required to wear collared shirts, dress pants or jeans, and dress shoes while traveling and making appearances. They also must wear sport coats on the bench if they aren't dressed for the game.
Banned are sneakers, boots, jerseys, chains, medallions and headgear. In addition, players can't wear sunglasses indoors or headphones at NBA-sponsored functions.
Some fans say that while the NBA has been capitalizing on hip-hop culture for years, it is now turning its back on hip-hop trends to please corporate sponsors.
S. Craig Watkins, a professor of sociology, African-American studies and radio-television-film at the University of Texas at Austin, said there is a reason to believe the decision was influenced by race, "or at least the perception of race."
But to a league that's trying to be profitable, an association with a culture that some people view as negative could only go so far, Watkins said.
"We see it more in basketball because of its connections to urban America, black America, that are shown in very visible ways," Watkins said. "As popular and influential as hip-hop has become, it still has a stigma attached. And quite frankly, that's been part of its appeal."
Heated debate
While watching a football game at Humperdink's restaurant near Six Flags Over Texas, the dress code debate split friends Keith Coleman and Byron Smith, who are both 31 and black.
Coleman, an Arlington barber, said the rules have the appearance of racism because they focus on hip-hop trends most commonly associated with blacks.
"Every time we do something the majority does not agree with, it becomes negative," said Coleman. "Why is hip-hop associated with being thuggish?"
Because business casual is the standard, answered Smith, who lives in Dallas and works for a waste-hauling company.
"The NBA is a business, and the players should reflect that," Smith said. "It's not going to kill them to put on slacks and collared shirts."
Some NBA players don't realize that playing professional basketball is their job, he added.
"They are employees of the NBA, and the boss has asked them to dress more professional," Smith said. "If the average man who makes $40,000 a year can do it, surely the man who makes millions a year can do the same."
Coleman questioned the purpose of Stern's rule change.
"What image are they trying to improve?" Coleman asked. "It's basketball. You pay to watch super athletes play the game of basketball."
A cultural and image gap between the players and many fans, particularly corporate sponsors, made the dress code necessary, said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.
Swangard pointed to advertising polls in which NBA players, as a group, rated last in likeability among major sports stars.
But an independent survey by Teen Research Unlimited of Illinois said 13 of the 15 most popular athletes among teens were NBA players. The only non-NBA athletes to make the Top 15 were NFL quarterback Michael Vick and skateboarder Tony Hawk.
Yet Swangard said that teens are not the audience that has a problem with player images; it is the corporate sponsors.
"I want to remind those guys: Take a moment and look around the building before tip-off and tell me where your fan base is," Swangard said. "It's guys in suits, it's corporate guys, suburban couples -- their market is upper end."
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said the dress code policy was born out of marketing missteps that have nothing to do with the players' dress.
"NFL players and NBA players dress the same," Cuban wrote in an e-mail to the Star-Telegram. "The NFL doesn't have this problem because the NFL's ratings are higher than ours ... I think we do a poor job of promoting the league. We let the media set the perception and that was our big mistake. Now we have to make up for it."
Cuban, who said the policy was unwarranted, and sports marketing consultant Marc Ganis, who thought it was needed, both said it has no racial undertones.
"The players simply need to demonstrate to the fans that when they are at a game, it's a workday for them," said Ganis, president of the Chicago-based consulting company Sportscorp Limited. "If you're going to your job, you're looking professional."
Swangard said concerns that the policy is biased are off base because the same rules apply to white players.
"One of the worst-dressed athletes of all time is Canadian," Swangard said, referring to ex-Maverick Steve Nash, whose unkempt hair and sloppy attire are well-known. "Should Canadians take the dress code personally? I don't, and I'm Canadian."
A culture clash
The superstars who had carried the league's corporate brand in the 1980s and into the '90s -- Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson -- were rarely seen without suits and ties.
They were -- and still are -- popular and marketable despite negative publicity related to their personal lives. Jordan's gambling was well-known, and he was sued over an extramarital affair. Bird was accused of abandoning a daughter born out of wedlock, and Johnson contracted HIV in one of many extramarital affairs.
But in the late 1990s, after their retirements, Watkins said, the NBA and hip-hop became more intertwined. To many members of the newer generation of players, an assault on hip-hop is an assault on the culture they grew up in.
"The league is made up now of guys who have never known a world without hip-hop," Watkins said. "There is an intimate, emphatic connection with the music and the lifestyle. And now there is an effort to contain that. The message to corporate partners is, 'We are in control of this league.'"
At Rudin's Sports at The Parks at Arlington mall, oversized jerseys, do-rags and wide-bill ball caps drape the walls. Owner Al Rudin has mixed feelings about the new NBA dress code. On one hand, Rudin says, the dress code "will take the appearance of thuggery out of the NBA," but from a business standpoint, "it's going to hurt."
Rudin said he's already feeling a hit in sales as the hip-hop trend moves away from licensing apparel to cheaper, non-licensed apparel, such as plain, white baggy T-shirts.
He said that at the height of the jersey fashion, his annual gross from his stores in Arlington and Mesquite was about $800,000. This year, "I'm lucky if I bring in $400,000."
At the headquarters of Philadelphia-based Mitchell and Ness -- a leading vendor of authentic replica jerseys, which are among the banned items -- the new dress code is not helping business. Young people already were beginning to favor plain oversized T-shirts over the jerseys, executives said.
Reuben Harley, the company's vice president of marketing, said the league is being hypocritical.
"The NBA loves making money off the apparel, but at the same time they don't want to see it," Harley said. "The NBA is full of young athletes in their 20s who are reflecting what they were brought up on and that is hip-hop."
Coleman, who lives in Mansfield, agrees: "These kids are coming to the league with a certain identity, and now they want them to change."
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