NCAA Basketball Tournament Design Direction. 2009 and forward.
The NCAA March Madness tournament is among the most energized sporting events in the country. Nike has a big presence at the event—not only does it sponsor many of the participating teams, but it is also the official on-court apparel supplier. The champs wear a Nike tee as they ceremonially cut down the nets, spastically run around the court in jubilation, and pose for a team picture. That translates into a perfect instrument for Nike to show what it’s made of.
Yet Nike’s design for the tournament, from a footwear, apparel and a marketing standpoint, had been lacking a strong centralized point of view. Apparel specifically was stuck in a tired “event design” aesthetic that looked like everyone else: take off the swoosh and it could be Under Armor, Adidas, whoever. Even worse it expressed neither a basketball nor a Nike brand narrative. There was also no unifying force; it was a bland pile of "stuff" in a kitchen sink.
I was brought into the team-sports and basketball groups to shake up convention and set a new apparel direction for the 2009 tournament. But I wanted to go a step further and demonstrate that going forward Nike as a brand–product, merchandising, and marketing–should be telling a unified season long narrative around the event.
The following shows a portion of my conceptual-direction presentation to the team.
My concept was to strip away all non-essential visual elements, to set a direct Final Four narrative, and work towards a simple, bold expression that was clearly Nike.
2009 NCAA Champs.
I didn’t create any of the actual designs, but my direction established the tone.
In “shaking up convention” I was quite successful. There was definitely some resistance in certain camps and they managed to dilute the final product to a degree. But most everyone else was ecstatic about the direction. The art director for Nike Team Sports, wrote the following to me and the higher ups: “I have to tell you that John hit it out of the park with his Final Four direction. He was able to bring a really fresh point of view with a clear Nike read. Thanks John. You are my new Hero!” “John, I know the whole thing got watered down,” he told me later, “but the line we ended up offering sold into retail in the highest numbers in years. We have you to thank for that.”
In the following years the DNA of my direction was still visible.
While the bold #1 statement held, the visual spaghetti still can't be tamed!