Kobe Bryant - Los Angeles Lakers Kobe Bryant - Lakers Kobe Bryant

Scott Soshnick is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Kobe Bryant as Pitchman Sends a Warped Message: Scott Soshnick Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- It's difficult to understand why Nike Inc. would bring back Kobe Bryant, the pitchman, unless you take a look around Staples Center on game night.

Women of all ages sport gold and purple jerseys, emblazoned with Bryant's name and No. 8. Somehow, they seem to forget that he allegedly raped a woman and is an admitted adulterer.

``I don't view him as a person, but a player,'' a 22-year- old named Tina, who refused to give her last name, said before the Knicks-Lakers game on Nov. 16 in Los Angeles. ``I don't care what he does off the court.''

Even if she doesn't care, Nike should. And so should the National Basketball Association and its broadcast partners, both of which have played a role in promoting Bryant since prosecutors in Colorado dropped a rape charge in September 2004. Bryant settled a civil suit by his accuser for an undisclosed amount.

Nike, you'll recall, holds itself out as a good corporate citizen to its customers, many of whom fork over more than $150 for a pair of sneakers. The company's rehabilitation of Bryant complicates the task for any parent charged with explaining to a 10-year-old why Bryant is no role model.

``What values are we sending to this next generation?'' asks Frank Ginsberg, chief executive of the New York-based advertising firm Avrett, Free & Ginsberg, which doesn't count sports leagues or teams among its clients. ``If I do something bad, I'll get well known and they'll license my name? It's a bad thing we're teaching our kids. The values are distorted.''

And it's all so unnecessary.

Reintroduction

Nike's decision to reintroduce the 27-year-old Bryant into its advertising would be somewhat understandable if the company's success hinged on the seven-time All-Star. It doesn't.

Nike has a stable of well-established players, including Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James, who replaced Bryant as the spokesman for Coca-Cola Co.'s Sprite brand, and Denver's Carmelo Anthony.

Bryant shouldn't be barred from dunking in the NBA and collecting every penny of his $100 million-plus playing contract. He wasn't convicted of anything. As for his adultery, that's for him and his wife to debate.

Athletes charged with felonies, however, (no matter the outcome) should surrender their right to be the face of anything. Nike gave Bryant a four-year, $45 million endorsement contract in June 2003, just weeks before he was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old hotel worker in Eagle, Colorado.

Find a Reason

If Nike couldn't find some reason to void the contract, the company should have just paid Bryant to do nothing until it expired. Other companies, including McDonald's Corp., Russell Corp. and Ferrero SpA, Italy's largest chocolate manufacturer, didn't utilize Bryant in their advertising and didn't renew their agreements with him.

Nike, however, has chosen to once again put its faith in Bryant, who appears in print and television commercials for the world's No. 1 athletic shoemaker. Nike, which has never wavered since Bryant was charged, even rewarded him with his own logo on a new line of shoes. Previously, only Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Vince Carter and James -- who has a $90 million endorsement deal -- had their own marks on Nike footwear.

``If I were responsible for signing an NBA player, Kobe certainly wouldn't be in my top five,'' says Ryan Schinman, president of New York-based Platinum Rye Entertainment, which arranges marketing deals for athletes. ``He's not somebody I would want on my squad.''

Court TV

Nike isn't the only culprit.

Time Warner Inc.'s TNT cable channel, which is paying $2.2 billion for six years of NBA broadcast rights, featured Bryant in preseason commercials. Miami's Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade, Phoenix's Amare Stoudemire and Steve Nash, Detroit's Ben Wallace and New Jersey's Richard Jefferson also appeared. Only Bryant has also shown up on Court TV.

It's odd that a network partner would make Bryant the standard-bearer of the league while Commissioner David Stern is trying to polish the NBA's image. According to Stern, the NBA's 400-plus players get a bad rap because of a few who misbehave.

The NBA was so concerned about how its players were perceived that earlier this year it hired Matthew Dowd, a strategist who worked for President George W. Bush, to conduct focus groups aimed at finding out what casual sports fans thought of them. Punks and thugs is what they said most often.

Stern's solution: impose a dress code for players.

His concern was misplaced. If Stern really wanted the public to think well of his players, Bryant isn't one to highlight. He is, after all, among the few who do so much to sully the reputations of the many.