This post was originally published in Feb of 2009 but has gotten a lot of hits lately so bumping it up to a “sticky” post for now

Changing the culture of any business is a difficult task but try setting a policy aimed at changing the culture of your business when your employees are for the most part twenty-somethings each of whom is making millions of dollars a year in salary alone.  That was the task that faced the National Basketball Association three years ago when commissioner David Stern first implemented a NBA Player Dress Code.

Despite what you think of the NBA, the league was at a cross-roads after the 2004-2005 season.  It was a league that had not had Michael Jordan on the marquee for years, did not have a superstar to replace him with (even Kobe Bryant had suffered public indiscretions) and to top it off the Indian Pacers and Detroit Pistons were involved in a brawl which started on the basketball court but ended up in the stands. That incident caused nine players to be suspended without pay for a total of 146 games (which led to $10 million in salary being lost by the players), five players were charged with assault, and all five were eventually sentenced to a year on probation and community service. Five fans were also legally charged, and one fan received a lifetime ban from attending Pistons games.

For a business that was trying to attract large corporate sponsorships, television deals and have individual arenas sell off naming rights the image of NBA players as thugs did not exactly gel.

In response, on October 17, 2005, NBA commissioner David Stern implemented a mandatory dress code for all NBA and NBA Development League players. Beyond the fact that the rule was novel to the NBA, it was actually even more  noteworthy because the NBA became the first major professional sports league to implement such a rule, although National Hockey League rules state that a player is supposed to wear a jacket and tie to games and on charters if not told otherwise by the head coach or general manager.

To say the reaction of the players, fans and media was mixed would be to be extremely kind to Mr. Stern. A quick Google search gives me reactionary quotes which read from the ridiculous  “I’m not really a suit guy, so I’m going to have some fun with it. I’ll wear, like, purple shoes, yellow slacks, a burgundy shirt, cut-up tie and a lavender sport coat. I’m going to mix it up.” – Ron Artest -  to the absolutely stupid “I don’t see it happening unless every NBA player is given a stipend to buy clothes.” – Marcus Camby

Fast forward three years to this past weekend when I inevitably flipped through the NBA’s All-Star weekend festivities and couldn’t help but notice that virtually every player not involved in the on-court activities was dressed in a minimum of “business casual” and most were wearing suits that cost more than my car. They looked classy. They looked like guys who make millions of dollars. They looked like the type of individuals you want to have representing your corporate brand and not only if brand is about flash and sizzle.

Of course everyone knows who Lebron James is and quite obviously he gets signed to do endorsement deals because the man can flat out play. However as a league what the NBA sells is a whole product. They absolutely rely on individuals to market that product but again the sum of the parts is what they sell. So while the dress code that was implemented three years ago may not have been met with great fanfare at the time, there is no doubt in mind that it has been a success. The players seem to have accepted if not embraced it (“I hear guys used to come to games wearing sweat suits…that just isn’t professional” – Kevin Durant) and even corporate partners of the NBA have picked up on the theme and used it in their advertisments (see the Reebok Allen Iverson commercial).

I guess my point is that every once in a while you have to step back and look at your business through your customer, partner and the public’s eyes, making your decisions based on what is best for the overall business, not what is going to rattle the fewest people. In the case of the NBA, the commissioner’s decision to implement a dress code was highly scrutinized (even called racist by some), but at the end of the day three years later there are few who would not call it a tremendous success.


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