TAKING NBA AROUND THE GLOBE : LATIN AMERICA IS LEAGUE'S FOCUS.

Byline: Fran Brennan Miami Herald

Rob Levine's job isn't exactly a slam dunk.

Sure, he's a vice president of the National Basketball Association, an organization widely hailed for its cutting-edge marketing wizardry.

But, while his colleagues in New York only have to sell their game to an already basketball-mad U.S.A., his mission is to increase the popularity of the NBA in Latin America - a land where baseball and soccer have reigned supreme for a century.

Yet for Levine, running the NBA Latin America office in Miami has proven a win-win situation. He has watched the popularity of the sport south of the border grow by leaps, bounds and bottom lines.

``In just two years, we've seen extraordinary progress,'' says Levine, 41, who has been with the NBA 12 years, most recently in Hong Kong, one of nine offices outside the United States. ``There are more kids playing in basketball programs than ever. And the more you play, the more passion you have for the game, the more you want to affiliate with the game.''

And, in a world where the NBA is seen as the pinnacle of basketball, the more you want to watch American professional basketball on television, sport NBA-logo apparel and collect NBA trading cards and other memorabilia.

That means big money. Last season, the NBA counted gross retail sales of $3 billion worldwide from the sales of videos, computer games, apparel, memorabilia, and so on - $2.6 billion in the United States and $400 million elsewhere. By contrast, in the 1987-88 season, the NBA's sales were just $300 million in the United States, $10 million outside.

Thanks to Levine and his eight-person marketing team, all of this is possible now in Latin America.

Mexico's Television Azteca will carry between 50 and 53 NBA games this season. In any given week in any of the Latin American countries that televise NBA games, there might be a featured game of the week, a 30-minute highlights show and a 30-minute team show.

But television may not always be enough to draw the kind of audience the NBA wants. Trying to attract viewers even to the Michael Jordans and Shaquille O'Neals of the NBA can be difficult when they're a continent away from the superstars.

``That's Rob's challenge,'' says Peter Land, marketing communications coordinator for the NBA in New York. ``We know that we don't play games there. But there are established leagues in many of these parts of the world. And with television, young people do have access to NBA games and stars.

``Then, growing out of that business are our products and licensing, the 2 Ball program in Mexico - in terms of grassroots growth of the sport of basketball, that's a perfect example of how to engage young people.''

Last season's McDonald's NBA 2 Ball youth skills program - in which two kids team up to compete against the clock - drew three million students from 40,000 schools throughout Mexico. The finalists competed in late October in Mexico City, where they also got to watch the Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and Dallas Mavericks go head to head in the NBA Challenge.

The all-around winners of the 2 Ball competition get a trip to the NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland in February.

Levine notes that Brazil has a similar NBA program for fledgling basketball fans.

``At the end of the day, our greatest popularity is with young people,'' he says. ``It goes beyond the game to music, players as personalities, lifestyle, excitement beyond the court.''

To capitalize on that interest, the NBA works with Nike to market logo gear in Latin America, and with Wonder Bread and Sprite to market team logos, maps and cans. Other global partners include Coca-Cola and AT&T.

Apparently, it's working. Although few of the NBA's players hail from Latin American countries, the league sells down south.

In Mexico, the first game of last spring's NBA finals got a 15 rating and a 21 share, with 2.3 million of a possible 15 million television households tuning in to watch the Chicago Bulls battle the Seattle Supersonics.

That doesn't fall far short of the average ``Monday Night Football'' telecast in the United States, which wins a 16.2 rating and a 27 share.

``If we grow the game of basketball, good things happen for our business, good things happen for the game, and good things happen for the participants,'' says Levine, who calls Miami the perfect spot from which to court all of Latin America. ``It's a win win win.''

Florian Wanninger agrees. A spokesman for the Federation Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) - the sport's Germany-based governing body - Wanninger has seen interest in basketball skyrocket since the Dream Team took to the floor in Barcelona in 1992.

``Whatever the NBA does in terms of promotion of the game affects basketball only in a positive way,'' Wanninger says. ``It helps basketball worldwide.''

Although he calls it ``tough to come up with exact numbers,'' Wanninger notes that one of the biggest of the European basketball federations - France's - had about 80,000 members in 1992. Now, there are 140,000 active basketball players in France. Similar jumps are happening with programs in other countries, he says, to the extent that basketball is now seen as a close rival to soccer as the world's premier sport.

Interest in watching the game is on the rise, as well. The 1994 World Championships in Toronto, which hosted a second U.S. Dream Team, drew 1.83 billion television spectators in 220 countries. Roughly 330,000 fans watched the games live, compared with 80,000 in Argentina in 1990.

Neither Levine nor Land is willing to give the NBA all the credit for the growing interest in basketball. But both agree that strong marketing can only help ``grow the game.''

And with the NBA already popular on TV in 180 countries, Latin America might seem the last frontier.

``There are still many opportunities in many parts of the world,'' Land says. ``China, for example. What's next? I don't know. Is there life on Mars?''

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Photo

Photo: As vice president of the NBA, Rob Levine's job is to increase the popularity of the game in Latin America.

C.W. Griffin / Miami Herald